Progeny 2008!

When Peter and I went to the fertility specialist, the nurse gave us a whole list of tests I would have to undergo during my next menstrual cycle, which started today.

I called the office and set up about three different tests and I have to call another office to set up another, more invasive, test. Fun!

It was kind of amusing, because I called and the reaction on the other end of the line was, "So you're at Day 1!!"

In my mind today is no longer Friday but Day 1!! and Saturday is now Day 2!!

I know that I probably should have made all these appointments a few years ago. This is something my mother nags me about at least twice a week. Peter and I had a conversation about this last night, about whether it would have been better to find out earlier that I probably wouldn't be able to conceive naturally.

He said that this was all for the best, because we weren't ready to have children earlier and it wouldn't have been a good idea to try at that time.

I have very mixed feelings about this because having children is something I've always wanted to experience, but at the same time, not everyone gets to have everything they want in life.

Peter's mother considers herself the unluckiest person in the world and she had four healthy children. Having that in her life didn't make her a happy person.

I feel so very lucky to have met Peter and to be able to share my life with him.

In a few weeks, we'll have some answers about whether or not we'll be able to have children. I feel like I'm standing in a hallway of locked doors holding a string of keys and I'm not sure which doors are going to be able to open up.

I just hope that I don't become one of those women who get really bitter about other people's happiness.

When Peter's sister had trouble getting pregnant the first few years of her marriage, every time you would bring up a story about someone else having a baby, she would say something in a really snide way. One time, she said something like, "Oh yeah, they're reproducing?"

I don't think I have that kind of personality, but it's a human reaction to feel a bit sad for yourself.

It's kind of daunting when I think about all the people who had to survive cave-ins, tigers, evolution, revolutions, and all my ancestors who had to survive to adulthood to have progeny to get to a point where I could come into the world. It's pretty amazing.

Don't Blame the Dogs!

While we were on vacation, Peter received a frantic call from his mother because her eye was itchy and it was driving her crazy. When he told her to go to her doctor, her reply was, "But I went yesterday."

Hmmm.

On Mother's Day, he went to visit his mom and her eye looked like it had puffed into a sort of eye pus balloon at some point, and now the balloon had become deflated, so you could see all the flabby left-over eye balloon pooled around her eye. I hope I adequately described this in some sort of vivid second-hand manner, because I wasn't actually there. At the last minute, I didn't feel up to it because I was still tired from our plane ride the night before.

Even though this eye allergy flared up one week after her visit, she is convinced it is because of the dogs.

When she pet the dogs, Peter told her to wash her hands. This is something we do every day, every time we touch the dogs. She went to the bathroom and put her hands under the tap...but apparently decided not to squirt that germ-killing medium we call SOAP on her hands.

The other day, Peter asked her why she didn't put soap on her hands and her reply was that it was sheer stupidity. But then Peter pressed her further.

"Ma. When you wash your hands at your house, do you wash them with soap?"

"Every time."

"So...Why didn't you wash them with soap at our house."

"I don't know. That's why it's so stupid. I ALWAYS wash my hands with soap."

This is when I started to over-think this. I convinced myself that she didn't wash her hands because she didn't understand that the liquid in the convenient pump dispenser was soap. In fact, she might not even know that soap comes in a liquid form now because she lives in that time capsule she calls her apartment in the Bronx.

Peter said I was completely ridiculous. But I say that I will never overestimate someone who still cannot figure out that when you get into the passenger side of an automobile, you should not try to get in with your right foot first.

I don't believe that the dogs were the culprit, because allergies tend to flare up quite suddenly. I know, I experienced a case of Fries Hives at the City Limits Diner. I ate some Fries that they sprinkled some mysteriously delicious spices on and broke out in hives all over my arms INSTANTLY.

I'm convinced Peter's mother must have dropped a piece of paper on the street, picked it back up along with whatever microbes were laying about, and later, rubbed her hands all over her face and into the petri-dish she calls her eye.

So, just to be safe, I think she should stop coming to our house. I mean, I'm ONLY thinking of her HEALTH.

1001 Books

How could someone compile a list called 1001 Books to Read Before You Die and not have his head completely explode?

Here is a list of the complete 1001 books.

I've read 89 of those books! Actually, I've read more, but I limited myself to only the books I remember the plot of, so anything I read in fifth grade and can't remember didn't make the list.

# indicates books I listened to on tape.
* indicates books I read more than once.

My one caveat - I included Infinite Jest, even though I only read about half of it, because dude! That thing is 1088 pages - so my reasoning is that those 500 pages I read will NOT go to waste! So you could say I read 88.5 books on the list.

# On Beauty – Zadie Smith
# The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – Mark Haddon
# Everything is Illuminated – Jonathan Safran Foer
Middlesex – Jeffrey Eugenides
# The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen
The Body Artist – Don DeLillo
# White Teeth – Zadie Smith
*The Blind Assassin – Margaret Atwood
The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver
Glamorama – Bret Easton Ellis
The Hours – Michael Cunningham
*The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy
Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
attempted - Infinite Jest – David Foster Wallace
Alias Grace – Margaret Atwood
#The Shipping News – E. Annie Proulx
Trainspotting – Irvine Welsh
The Stone Diaries – Carol Shields
*The Virgin Suicides – Jeffrey Eugenides
*The Robber Bride – Margaret Atwood
*The Secret History – Donna Tartt
Possessing the Secret of Joy – Alice Walker
Jazz – Toni Morrison
*The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje
Black Water – Joyce Carol Oates
*The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien
*Like Life – Lorrie Moore
# Possession – A.S. Byatt
Billy Bathgate – E.L. Doctorow
Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
The Temple of My Familiar – Alice Walker
Like Water for Chocolate – Laura Esquivel
Cat’s Eye – Margaret Atwood
Beloved – Toni Morrison
* Anagrams – Lorrie Moore
*Reasons to Live – Amy Hempel
# The Cider House Rules – John Irving
Less Than Zero – Bret Easton Ellis
*The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
The Lover – Marguerite Duras
*The Color Purple – Alice Walker
*The House of the Spirits – Isabel Allende
Delta of Venus – Anaïs Nin
Interview With the Vampire – Anne Rice
Fear of Flying – Erica Jong
Sula – Toni Morrison
The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison
# I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou
*The Godfather – Mario Puzo
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test – Tom Wolfe
In Cold Blood – Truman Capote
Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys
The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey
A Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
*Franny and Zooey – J.D. Salinger
*To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe
Lord of the Flies – William Golding
*The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
Animal Farm – George Orwell
*The Little Prince – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Out of Africa – Isak Dineson (Karen Blixen)
*Gone With the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
*To The Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf
*The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
*Mrs. Dalloway – Virginia Woolf
*The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Trial – Franz Kafka
The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton
Dracula – Bram Stoker
The Time Machine – H.G. Wells
*The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
The Portrait of a Lady – Henry James
Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
*Little Women – Louisa May Alcott
Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
*Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life Among the Lonely – Harriet Beecher Stowe
The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne
*Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
*Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
The Fall of the House of Usher – Edgar Allan Poe
Frankenstein – Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
*Emma – Jane Austen
*Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
*Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
*Aesop’s Fables – Aesopus


I know, only a nerd would do this.

Upgrade...Upgrade

Peter and I are at the Westin Dilpomat Resort Hotel & Spa in Hollywood, FL. I know, it's a mouthful, but the place is HUGE and has 2 locations.

We've had to change our rooms twice since we got here - Basically, when we first checked in, because we have different last names and we are here for a conference, the hotel booked us a room with two double beds. And even though at the lobby, when the front desk clerk said, "Two double beds, is that alright?" Peter was the one who said, "Sure!"

But when we get to the room, Peter looked at the beds and said, "Those are WAY too small! You move around WAY too much while you sleep." So I had to run downstairs and change our room. I'm sure it was annoying to the clerk. He said that they had another room with a king-sized bed, but there was no balcony, which was fine with me, because the balcony in that room basically overlooked the next building and had a lovely view of the 7Eleven.

Our next room was on the 35th floor and gorgeous! I felt a bit bad, but every time we have requested a room change at a hotel, we were given a room that was head and tails better than the one we had originally, which is positive reinforcement for negative behavior. I may have to start asking for room changes more often, if that's the case.

We had a view of the ocean and the city, and we were really happy there until a few hours ago when there was a torrential rain and thunderstorm that lasted for about ten minutes, but resulting in the cascading of water down the sides of the window which got poured all over the carpet. I think all of the rainwater in Hollywood, Fl landed on our carpet, there was so much water.

So, room change number 2 - And this last room we got is completely fantastic. Full-on ocean-view WITH a balcony! I think if we ask for another room change, we're going to get the Presidential suite.

When I told my sister this story, she said that she is very sure that hotel double-beds are smaller than real-life double beds, and I must agree. Although I'm sure the front-desk clerk would beg to differ.

Trader Joe's Joe Joes Are EVIL

The other day, a friend of mine had a bag of Trader Joe's Joe Joes in her bag and offered me one. They are an all-natural OREO cookie for those of us who read nutritional labels on all boxes. It is really the most delicious thing in the world. Later that day, when I found myself at Trader Joe's, I slipped a box into my cart.

Two days later, right before Peter and I finished the box, he said, "Do you realize that TWO of these are ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY calories?"

I was stunned. I couldn't believe that I was gobbling up THOUSANDS of calories.

He looked at me very gravely and said, "You CANNOT buy these EVER AGAIN."

You'll Need a Husband for That

I met this lady today and the minute she told me that she fed her 15-year-old poodles organic food that she makes herself, I knew that she must have been a 70's hippie-lady. And later, when I asked her what her last name was, she said, "My last name or my husband's last name, because we have DIFFERENT last names."

It's kind of funny because I didn't take my husband's last name, although a lot of my married women friends have started to do that. It's not that big a deal now, but in the 70's, when this lady did it, it was a really RADICAL notion. And I could tell that she still kind of feels that way, by her reaction.

In Taiwan, where my mother is from, a woman doesn't take her husband's last name. She's still called by her maiden name, but she may also be called So-and-so Tai Tai, which means Mrs. So-and-so.

But the last name issue got us to talking and she told me that when she first got married, she couldn't get a credit card because she kept her maiden name. The credit card company didn't issue cards to women unless they were married and had their husband's name.

Boy, how times have changed.

She Learned So Much

So Peter's mother left today. Peter told us that he needed to stop by his client's office so he had to take her home early. He asked me if I wanted to tag along, and I was like, "Go to work with you? Uh...Hmmm. No."

Then later, in the bedroom, he whispers, "I'm not going to work. Are you sure you don't want to come with me?"

My answer was, "You LIED to us?"

"Yeah. Do you want to go into the city with me?"

"YES!!"

His mother had wanted to stay until the evening, but Peter wanted to take her home early. Because he didn't want to go through the whole song and dance of guilt, he told her he had to go to his client's office, which is 15 minutes away from her apartment.

So I did tag along, since we went to The CITY!!!! And had lunch at Angelica Kitchen! And dessert at Max the Bald Man's!!!!

I LOVE The CITY!

Later, Peter said that his mother really loved reading all the magazines I got at the library.

She was amazed that I had so many People, Us Weekly, and Vogue magazines, and he told her that I got them for her. She told him that she had a lot of fun reading them and that, "I learned so much I didn't know before about celebrities!"

At least I'm doing my job - the job of celebrity educator. Maybe I should get a PhD in that.

What're They Gonna Do?

Peter's mom is staying at our place for a few days and we were all watching Dancing With the Stars, her favorite show, when Def Leppard comes on and plays "Pour Some Sugar On Me."

As soon as Joe Elliot starts to sing, Peter says, "Oh that's lame. They're totally lip-synching."

"How can you tell?"

"Because they don't sound that good live."

"But what're they gonna do? They have to sound like themselves on the radio. Or people won't know who they are."

Beware of Dog Adopting

Peter and I have been discussing ways in which we can volunteer our time and web expertise to help a local pet shelter. That is, as soon as Peter's done with his gazillion never-ending projects. It's something we've been wanting to do lately, and now that Peter's going to have his own servers, he can afford to offer this up for free.

I told him that it might be really difficult to go to these pet shelters because we're going to want to bring all the dogs home. The only reason we've been feeding, taking out, clipping the nails from this Siberian Husky, as well as trying to remove white hairs from every single thing we own (including our backgammon board!) is because we went to a pet shop and this adorable white puppy sighed and slumped down in his kennel.

And here we are, almost seven years later.

The lesson? DO NOT go to a pet store just to look at cute puppies.

Also, we have learned since then. Do NOT ever buy a puppy from a store because they get them from horrible puppy mills.

I told Peter that we are really going to have to harden our hearts when we go to these shelters and he turned to me and said:

"Oh, I'm not stepping a foot in there."

That's because Peter's got a heart mushy like a gooey old ripened banana.

Dork!

Me: You're the biggest dork.

Peter: In the sense that I am bigger than you, then yes, I may be the bigger dork. But you are, pound-for-pound, a MUCH bigger dork than I am.

Neighborly Behavior

Now that the parking spot controversy has been solved to our liking, our neighbor has been continuously parking on the line, which is actually against the condo association rules.

How do I know this? Because right before we left for our South Carolina vacation, I parked our car in the guest spot next to our spot because we have a Honda Element. The clamshell doors on our Element may seem like a good idea...unless you are not parallel parked. If you are parked in regular parking lot spots, especially spots that are super-tight, you have to open one door - smush your body all the way to the left - then open the back door. And if you need to let someone in the backseat, it means that you must both smush in together.

Because I knew this may be a problem in terms of packing up our car, I parked in the guest spot and the front wheel of my car was touching the line. I felt that since the line impinged on our assigned parking spot, it wasn't a big deal. I was only hurting myself.

Lo and behold, as soon as I got back from vacation, there was a note from the management company stating that I had parked ON THE LINE which may be SUBJECT TO LARGE FINES.

For the past few weeks, ever since they have made our spot bigger, my neighbor has now been parking on the line, the line that distinguishes between our spot and her spot. At first I had been letting it go - I figured she might have misjudged her new space. But now it's just getting annoying.

Exhibit 1:



Exhibit 2:



I would narc on her, but I'm too lazy to tattle.

And if you click on the last photo, you will see that her license plate holder says, "Angels are watching over me."

Yeah. Watching you be a jerk!

Even Though

After our meeting with the fertility specialist, Peter said:

"I feel really good about this. There were a few times while I was sitting in his office where I felt nauseous and slightly sick to my stomach, but I feel really good."

Aww...

Isn't he so sweet?

Don't Worry

Tomorrow we're going to a fertility specialist who is going to let us know if our chances of progeny are good, not good, or impossible.

It's a visit that I've been putting off for about two years. We had just recently decided that maybe having kids may not be the most terrible mistake we'll ever make in our lives. And now, it looks like we may have to go through extensive scientific experiments to find out if we even have any chance to make the most terrible mistake of our lives.

This all started because a few weeks ago, I went to my gyno and she startlingly told me that I had not ovulated the month previously and that my estrogen levels are alarmingly low.

We had been putting off the kids thing for a few years because it's going to change our lives and every keeps saying, "Wait until you're ready."

No one ever says, "You want to go to Hawaii? Wait until you're ready."

They just say, "Go to Hawaii! It's terrific!"

Also, we had friends who told us after the birth of their son that it was the best thing that ever happened. And the way they kept saying it was like, "Best thing...best thing...best thing we ever did." Kind of like pod people. And then a few weeks later the husband was on the phone with Peter saying that his wife was threatening divorce.

Of course, this may have less to do with having kids than meeting, getting married and getting pregnant within a matter of weeks.

A few days ago, I started to second-guess myself and had a mild panic attack full of, "Maybe I shouldn't have waited so long! Maybe I should have gotten married and had kids ten years ago!"

Then I calmed down with the thought that if I can't have children, and this is the most terrible health problem I have in my lifetime, I would consider myself very lucky.

I have to say that I love my new gyno, not because she reminds me of Sandy Duncan with gray hair, but when she saw how alarmed I was when she told me that bad news about my estrogen levels, she said, "Don't worry. With all the technology we've got these days, if you want a baby, you'll have a baby."

This is much better than my old gyno, because when I asked her for a prescription for vitamins so that I could write off my vitamins in my flexible spending, her answer was, "You don't need that."

When I told her that I did need that, and that my flexible spending account stipulated that I needed that, she kept insisting that I didn't need it and refused to write me a prescription. So I didn't get to write off my vitamins. Suffice it to say, I don't think she would have been quite so supportive.

Ativan You

I got this spam email today which really made me laugh for no particular reason:

Ativan You Cheap Ativan

Is it funny to anyone else?

First Names

A few weeks ago, Peter and I got into the most tremendous fight about this blog. Basically, he didn't like the fact that I wrote about his family using their first names - case in point - Easter dinner.

I felt that this was ridiculous, since I've only got about twenty people who read my blog regularly. And you all know who you are... I am hardly Perez Hilton so I think that his family members are pretty safe from exposure-by-internet.

And yes, I did write their first names, but it's not like they have original one-of-a-kind names like Suri Cruise or Pax Jolie-Pitt. Their names are hobodinky regular names like Joe. There are probably about a million Joe's in the Tri-State area alone.

Every person in Westchester has a brother-in-law named Joe.

He suggested that I come up with pseudonyms, and I was all, "What am I supposed to do? Keep a log of all the fake names I come up with and keep a glossary of fake names I gave the real people who are NEVER GOING TO READ THIS BLOG EVER?" I mean, I have better things to do with my time and energy...like cruising the internet looking for ceramic fish umbrella stands.

But Peter felt that one day, y'know, that famous "One Day" everyone talks about, a member of his family will discover my web site and read all the posts about how awful they are, and will be VERY ANGRY.

To that, my response was, "But it's all true." My reasoning behind what I write on my blog is that if it is something I would not care for people to know, I do not share it, because I understand that this is published online, which means anyone with a computer is able to access it. Everything I write on my blog is something I would willingly share with anyone.

So that means, if you are a bitch at Easter dinner, I have every right to write about it. And creatively, I can put it in a poem, a short story, or in my case, a blog. So don't underestimate a writer with a chip on her shoulder. And you should never underestimate a writer with a chip on her shoulder who has a lot of time to kill.

So the long and the short of it is that Peter is no longer allowed to read my blog. Of course, he's going to read it anyway, but at least when he sees something he doesn't like, he can't say anything about it, because he's not even supposed to be reading it.

And I have promised to no longer write first names of anyone in his family.

Yes, this is what people who don't have children fight about. Things no one else give a crap about: Blog entries and who finished all the ice cream. Jealous anyone?

Nature Channel Right Outside Our House

Today Peter saw a hawk snatch a squirrel from a tree.

A squirrel was scurrying up a tree and WHOOM! The hawk just casually snatched it away.

Then, later as he was changing the doorbell (about seven months after it broke), he saw this big ant get stuck in a spiderweb and a teeny-tiny spider totally took it down.

Mount Kisco is full of nature.

How Can They Find That Many Ben Steins?

Tonight Ben Stein is scheduled to be on the Larry King show.

The very first time I saw the show, "Win Ben Stein's Money," the contestant they had on the show was named Ben Stein. My sister explained the concept of the show to me by saying, "You see, Ben Stein knows everything, so this other guy, whose name is also Ben Stein, is going to try to answer more questions than Ben Stein so he can win Ben Stein's money."

After my head reeled around the planet a few times, I asked:

"How many Ben Steins are there? How often is this show on that they can find that many people who are named Ben Stein? I mean, what do they do? Import people from Israel?"

For a moment, my sister looked at me like I was speaking in a different language. And yes, that language has a name, it's called: Stupidese.

And then I saw this look of recognition on her face, the, "Oh yes, must translate Stupidese into English" look. After all, I AM talking to MY SISTER.

"TODAY the show HAPPENS to have someone on the show named Ben Stein. But MOST of the time, the contestants are NOT named Ben Stein. The show is called Win Ben Stein's Money. Not Watch Another Ben Stein Win Ben Stein's Money."

"Yah...Gotcha."

I Still Stink!

The Crabtree and Old Lady Lotion still stinks! I've washed my hands about 17 times and the smell is still going strong. I think the fragrance has been seeped into my hands permanently.

This is La Source body lotion which I got from the Hilton Hotel in Atlanta. I had to throw it out because it's just too much!

Which is strange because I've used their soap, body wash, shampoo and conditioner and all I got was a pleasantly light scent.

I've washed my hands and put other lotions on my hands to negate the scent, but nothing is working.

I think I just might smell like this forever.

Crabtree and Old Lady

Sitting in the car on the way to the library:

Peter: What is that smell?

Me: Lotion.

Peter: What kind of lotion?

Me: Crabtree & Evelyn

Peter: More like Crabtree & Old Lady. You smell like a real estate lady.

He Puts Our Servants To Shame

I went to the doctor today, a completely new doctor picked out of the hat I call My HMO. As I was waiting for her in the examination room, I perused a copy of People Magazine that has Jennifer Lopez on the cover.

She was quoted as saying that her husband is so good with the children that he puts the help to shame.

I thought that was such a strange thing to say. On one hand, I thought, "Well, they are your kids. So, yes, you should probably take care of them better than your servants.

On the other hand...No, there is no other hand. It's kind of a weird thing to say, and a little creepy.

But then again, they live on Long Island.

When Peter and I went to his niece's christening, the priest actually said:

"You all have people you hire to help you take care of your children. And we have to act like the hired help, except we're helping Jesus."

I guess he was just speaking in a language they would understand: LongIslandese