Protected: Where’d That Come From?
Obnoxious, That’s Me
can’t say that I mean to be obnoxious. Honestly, 99% of the time, I’m not really obnoxious. Yes I can be pedantic, but I try hard not to be obnoxious. However, the other day, I found myself torn between being obnoxious or not passing on relevant (to my mind) information. Obnoxious won out.
I pulled into the parking lot at Zizi’s day care center and saw a dad taking his infant daughter out of a car seat in the back of his extended cab pickup truck.
I immediately had flashbacks to almost a decade ago when my colleague, Flaura Winston, began doing her research on pediatric traffic injury. One of her first major papers was describing how dangerous it was for kids seated in the rear of compact extended cab pickup trucks during collisions. According to this study, children in the rear seat of compact extended-cab pickups are nearly five times as likely to be injured as children seated in the back seat of other vehicles.
So I’m thinking to myself, does this dad know this? Should I tell him or should I just shut the fuck up? If I come up to him out of the blue, then I’m some obnoxious as fuck parent getting all up in his Kool-aid. Yet, if I say nothing, then I feel guilty wondering whether he knows that his vehicle choice is very risky for his little daughter. And what if he gets into an accident? Would he rather have known about the risk? I’m sure that the person who sold him the truck didn’t share that bit of information. What to do, what to do?
In the end, I opted for obnoxious. I came up to him as we were both walking back to our cars upon exiting the center.
“Sir,” I began, “let me apologize in advance if anything I say seems really obnoxious because I don’t mean for it to be. But my name is Liana and I’m a pediatrician. I used to work at CHOP with one of the researchers who did most of the recent work on child traffic injury prevention. And what I remember really well was her study that showed how dangerous extended cab trucks were for kids, even when they were in car seats. They were much more likely to get hurt or killed than in similar crashes in other cars.”
By now he’s kinda looking at me like I’m a Jehovah’s Witness coming to spread the word.
“Well I need this truck for work,” he explained.
“Absolutely,” I nodded, trying so hard not to appear to be a lunatic. “I wasn’t telling you this to make you go out and sell your truck. No, no no. I just didn’t know if you knew about the higher risk and I thought it might be good for you to just have the information. When I was in practice, I always believed in giving parents information so that they could make the best decisions for their families. That’s all I wanted to do here. Again, I’m sorry if I seemed rude or obnoxious. Have a good day.”
He watched me walk away with a weird look on his face. It wasn’t anger, but it certainly wasn’t happiness that I stopped to share that little tidbit of information with him either. I drove away feeling alternately like I hadn’t done anything wrong and like I was the biggest jerk on the face of the planet. In the end, I don’t think I did anything irretrievable, but I’m not sure I made the right choice.
When I run the situation through the Liana filter, the question becomes, if I were driving a car that is risky to my child in an accident would I want to know? Simple answer: yes. But the more complicated question is who would I want to be the one to tell me? My pediatrician wouldn’t tell me because s/he doesn’t even know what type of car I drive. My friends/family probably wouldn’t know about the risks unless it was featured on Eyewitness News. So is it OK that a random stranger with special knowledge comes and gives me this information? Or is it just plain obnoxious?
Entrelac for Me, Entrelac for You
bout two weeks ago, I promised a post about entrelac, and now I’m about to get to it. But first, I have to ask a completely unrelated question. Why oh why do these tiny little shoes have to cost $50?
Yes, they’re cute and they’re Umi, but good god, after Labor Day she’s never going to be able to wear them again! Do they really need to cost $50? Alas, when your daughter has narrow little feet, Stride Rite will not do.
OK, now back to the matter at hand: entrelac.
As most of you know, I’ve been knitting for a very long time. And unlike some knitters, who shall remain nameless, Monica, that prefer to stay in the comfort zone skillwise, I’ve always been one who likes to push the envelope. When I started knitting, I went from a headband, to a scarf, to this sweater: 
So, no, I don’t shy away from challenges.
I tackled cable and seed stitch sweaters:
Complicated patterns:
and even socks:
There really wasn’t much that daunted me…except entrelac.
Back when I was at my old job, I decided to do something fun and I started a knitting group. I promised that I could have anyone knitting within 10 minutes! It was great. New knitters were created. Beginners and intermediate knitters challenged themselves with new skills. And the experienced knitters had fun chatting and futzing about on their cool projects. And then one day, one of the members comes in with an entrelac pattern, looking to me for help getting started. I was forced to admit that entrelac was beyond me. It was the one thing that I just couldn’t do! I was so ashamed.
The good news was that Sharon, another experienced knitter, chose not to be intimidated by entrelac and ended up helping the woman get going with her project. But me, instead of trying to learn, I did one of my mother’s numbers and just decided that entrelac was too hard and I would never get it. I gave up without much of a fight.
But look at it. It looks hard, doesn’t it?
And look at all these pictures here: Entrelac photos
Yet, as I was to discover, entrelac was one of those things that looked much more complicated than it actually was…like cable knitting. How did I learn this? I finally broke down and took a class at The Tangled Web, my favorite IRL yarn store. As I sat there being my usual type-A Annie that Saturday morning, I finally realized that entrelac is really about following the pattern to make and join triangles and rectangles. It really isn’t that deep. Good lord, I was tripping over this?
So I went and ordered my yarn to take part in the Entrelac Market Bag Knit-Along. Piece of cake, I thought. No big deal. And then I accidentally screwed up. It wasn’t a that was totally FUBAR type of screw up, but it did necessitate a major frogging*. The good news is that I was able to find some help from the peeps in the Everything Entrelac forum on Ravelry, my new hangout. I was picking up stitches wrong (for entrelac) on the purl side. Now things look just fine:
It’s coming along.
Anyone want to join me in an online knit-along? I’ll get you the pattern and we can get our entrelac on over the next few weeks. Here’s a gallery of what the bag looks like when finished and felted: Market Square Bags gallery (Unfortunately I’m going to have to find someone with a top-loading washer for felting my bag since you can’t felt in a front-loader, I’ve discovered.)
Here are some great online resources for learning entrelac: All Aboard the Entrelac Express
Entrelac Scarf Tutorial
Red Thread’s Entrelac Tutorial
I will end with another digression, albeit one quasi-knitting related. Aren’t these cupcakes cool?
They were featured here: Knit Night Cupcakes
I’ve Been Tagged
oodness it has been so long since I’ve been tagged for a meme, I don’t even remember how it goes! But thanks to my friend, Deathstar, for her tag, you’re it. Let me see if I can jog my little memory engrams.
1. What were you doing 10 years ago?
Working like a natural dog as a teendoc attempting to save the world, and, if my memory is correct, dating Big Head Fred, a man with a head so huge, it could, in fact, blot out the sun. I also was into cycling and often had humorous adventures like the time I blew a tire 5 miles away from home at sunset and had no wallet, no phone and was out in the middle of nowhere. So I had to wheel the bike halfway until the tire got stuck and then I had to carry the bike for the next 2 miles in the dark on the side of the road wearing bike shoes until I got home. (I think Big Head Fred was out of the picture by then.)
2. What 5 things are on your to-do list for today?
Oh this is exciting! Label Zizi’s new sippy cups for daycare. Finish (start) my presentation that I have to give Tuesday in San Diego. Transplant the carrots and broccoli from the peat starter cups to the garden patch. Wash and twist my locs. Change the linen on the bed.
Yeah, I know that you are all so overwhelmed with the wild life that I lead.
3. List some snacks you enjoy.
This is a pretty random meme. Hmm. Snacks. Do pomegranate martinis count as snacks? I guess not. OK. Salt and pepper Orville Redenbacher microwave popcorn, white chocolate, wasabi almonds, vanilla sandwich cookies, peanut butter M&Ms, Necco Wafers and those conversation hearts you see around Valentine’s Day.
4. What would you do with a billion dollars?
After paying off my debts and buying a bigger house, I would establish a foundation like Bill and Melinda Gates to combat poverty and need in this country. And because I believe in education, it would also have a component that would provide scholarships for private schools.
5. List the places you have lived.
Washington, DC, Bronx, NY, Los Angeles, CA, New Haven, CT, Silver Spring, MD, Greenbelt, MD, Mount Laurel, NJ, Pennsylvania
6. List the jobs you have had.
File clerk, clerk typist, receptionist, data entry clerk, research assistant, freelance writer, resident physician, attending physician, medical director, go-go dancer (OK, just kidding with that last one)
Not a very interesting list, is it? It’s just that I knew early on that I never wanted to do anything that directly involved people and food and/or money. No service jobs. Put me in a nice air conditioned office. The pay was better and there was a lot less drama.
One summer I decided to work at the phone company. I went and took the test. Everyone was like, “Oh that was so hard!” and I was like, puleeze! When I had my interview to go over the test results, the guy was like, “you passed.” And I’m like, “Yes.” He somehow seemed like he wanted me to act like I did a year before when I got my Yale acceptance letter. I told him that I wanted to be an operator, but he made me…a file clerk. And after a few days of getting dirty and dusty with filing, I decided to dress down a bit. I wore a Yale t-shirt and jeans. As I walked in, one woman laughed at me, “You didn’t graduate from there?!” she guffawed pointing at my shirt.
I looked at her completely deadpanned, “No, I just finished my freshman year, but I will graduate in 3 years.”
The look on her face was priceless. It was like, Oh shit! How do I get out of this one? “Well I didn’t mean….I wasn’t trying to say…I mean…Well do you think you can get me a t-shirt when you go back?”
“Sure thing,” I promised.
The nice thing about my summer jobs are that they kept me really focused about finishing school and going on to med school.
So now I’m supposed to tag 3 other people. How about Millie from Out, Damned Egg, Sylvie from Chronicles of Mommyhood and Julie from Tales from the Stirrups. You guys are up!
And Happy Fathers’ Day to the dads out there!
Man Cold & How Weird Is My Husband
Man Cold
OK, this is too freaking funny.
AdoringHusband says that I should recognize the superior importance of the Man Cold. I’m sorry but men are too too much!
Yeah, I know I should go back to blogging about something meaningful, but between my colonscopy (negative), my upcoming breast MRI (after a very slightly abnormal mammogram) and Zara’s recent bout with fever to 105, I think that humor is about all I’m able to manage these days. Maybe I’ll do some knit blogging this week also. I’m learning entrelac.
And speaking of my dear husband, I really think that he should have been an engineer. He doesn’t think like a normal person. And no, engineers are not normal. Their brains work in unique and different ways. For example:
When I read this Dilbert on May 25th, I looked over at AdoringHusband and asked, “So how many bodies do you have hidden in the basement?”
His reply? “If they’re hidden, how would I know?”
You see, definitely not a normal answer. Hopefully Zizi will get most of her normal from Mommy.
Number Voodoo
ecause I am now nearly prostrate with hunger as I wait for my colonoscopy, I thought I would share another silly distraction with you all. It was actually pretty cool, though I know my geeky husband would probably have a simple explanation for it. I just like to think of it as number voodoo.
Grab a calculator.
1. Key in the first three digits of your phone number (NOT the area code…)
2. Multiply by 80
3. Add 1
4. Multiply by 250
5. Add to this the last 4 digits of your phone number
6. Add to this the last 4 digits of your phone number again.
7. Subtract 250
8. Divide number by 2
Do you recognize the answer?
Now wasn’t that kind of fun?
I’m still hungry.
The Bathroom Etiquette They Never Teach You
ecause I’m having to endure a day of hunger thanks to my clear liquid diet (and no red or orange clear liquids, thank you very much) in preparation for my lovely colonoscopy tomorrow, I’ve decided to post some of the randomness that is floating around in my head. Much of it, unsurprisingly, considering the task at hand for tomorrow, has to do with issues of bathroom etiquette that I’m never sure how to handle. Oh we all know that we should wipe our sprinkle after we tinkle and remember to double flush if necessary, but what are the right responses in these situations:
Scenario 1
You’re in the public bathroom at work and you’ve made a pretty decent BM. You flush. Unfortunately though the bulk of the waste is whisked away, there are still shit trails at the bottom of the toilet. You flush again. The shit trails remain. Do you:
a) Walk out when no one else is waiting to enter a stall so that you can pretend the shit trails were left by someone else.
b) Keep flushing again and again with the hope that the shit trails will eventually wash away.
c) Jam a ton of toilet paper in the bowl to hide the shit trails.
d) Grab a wad of toilet paper and wipe the shit trails off the bottom of the toilet bowl.
e) Hide in the stall until the end of the business day.
Scenario 2
Again, you’re in the public bathroom at work. As you sit on the toilet in the stall you realize that you are about to have a loud farty BM. Unfortunately there are a bunch of women standing out by the sinks chatting and hanging out. Do you:
a) Just let ‘er rip. It’s not like those women have never had a farty BM themselves.
b) HOLD IT IN until the bathroom is empty.
c) Disguise the farty noise by coughing or clearing your throat.
d) Use the technique of “throwing your fart” to make it sound like the fart came from another stall.
e) Hide in the stall until the end of the business day.
Scenario 3
You get the drill by now. You’re in a public bathroom at work. You’ve made a BM. A pretty smelly one at that. As you exit the stall, someone is waiting to enter. Do you:
a) Smile and let her nose fill her in when it’s too late.
b) Issue a warning that some airing out might be in order.
c) Turn back around saying, “Whoops, I guess I wasn’t finished.”
d) Sniff the air and say, “I wonder where that smell is coming from?”
e) Turn around and hide in the stall until the end of the business day.
Where are the etiquette gurus when you need them? Friends, what say you?
Enough About Dirt
ne of my friends grew quite weary of my constant refrain on Wednesday that I was as old as dirt. From him I received the following:
(click on the thumbnail to read)
I’ve got good friends, don’t I?
There was one last funny exchange on Wednesday night with my stepfather, though.
Joe: Happy birthday!
Me: Ah, it’s not happy. I’m as old as dirt!
Joe: If you’re as old as dirt, what does that make me?
Me: Um…the dirt?
And as Wednesday came to an end, I declared my pity party to be over. The number is what it is. How I react to it is the part under my control.
Hubby took me out bowling where I drank champagne martinis and had a blast. I also received more bling from AdoringHusband and Zizi as my present. (This having a husband with a real job is a fabulous thing!) Now a watch with diamonds!
So I am now thoroughly chastened after my whining on Wednesday. Life is good and I just need to shut the fuck up and enjoy the goodness I’ve got. Maybe I can even begin to make peace with that older lady in the mirror…
Anything is possible.
Does This Number Make Me Look Old?
appy birthday to me
Happy birthday to me
I’m as old as dirt
Happy birthday to me!
Geez Louise. There is something about turning 45 that just screams, “It’s over for you.” Not that life is over. Goodness, no. But that the young half of your life is now gone. See that thing running quickly away from you? That would be your youth. Wave goodbye to it. You’ll not see it again.
In your early 40s, you could kinda play it off. You were really no different from those late 30-somethings. But when you hit 45, that shit is done, finito, over. Young and 45 are never in the same sentence. Well maybe if that sentence is being said by a 75-year-old.
It’s not that I fear senescence. This is not a woe is me, get out the walker, Metamucil and Geritol whine. I completely understand that age is what you make of it. My 56-year-old aunt can run fitness circles around my 41-year-old movement challenged husband. So that isn’t it.
I think that it is more about the reframing of how I now see myself. I think that on some level I keep expecting to look in the mirror and see the person I used to be at 25 or even 35. I ask myself, who is this woman looking back at me with the gray hair and the rounder face? (Luckily being black, I’m not prone to wrinkles.) I still haven’t accepted that this older person is now the person I am…until I get even older, I suppose.
Sure, I may have lost 23 pounds, but there is still no way that anyone would ever call me a hottie. A cougar maybe, but hottie never. That ship has long sailed. And that is what gets to me. My youthful visage is a memory…something seen in photographs. And so much of that youth was spent depressed, lonely, and aching for connection. And now, now that I’ve finally got my head on straight, my heart working properly and my family, I look in the mirror and see this older face and this body challenged by gravity. What the hell! Yeah, I know that it beats the alternative. I’ve said that for years. But goodness, couldn’t I have had a little of the happy and a lot less of the crazy when I was a bit less gray and saggy?
At this point you are officially welcome to tell me to shut the fuck up. This whinging is ridiculous, isn’t it? But I generally allow myself a 24 hour birthday whine and then after that I have to suck it up and be done with it. So I’ll be back to baseline by tomorrow.
But in the meantime, if you see that older lady hanging around my mirror, will you tell her to get the fuck out of my bathroom and go bother someone else? I’d really appreciate it.
Pretty in Pink
I have to thank my dear blogger friend Deathstar for awarding me a Pink Rose Award. I am thrilled and honored that she sees my no nonsense take on life after adoption and on life in general as giving her hope. I have to tell you that with 5 days until my 45th birthday, no nonsense has become my personal ethos. I think that when Zara finally gets old enough to imitate her old mom, her first sentence will be, “I don’t have the time or the patience for this foolishness!” Let’s just cut to the chase and make it happen.
And I have to say that one of the beautiful things about being able to move through the pain of infertility now that I am a parent, is that I’m finding the real Liana again. Liana is learning to let go of the pregnancy envy and just enjoy the bliss of chasing behind a giggling toddler. She’s beginning to focus on what she has and not what she couldn’t do. She’s feeling like a real mom and not some wanna-be, less than, substitute with a broken uterus. In other words, there has been some healing. The Liana that I knew before I began this infertility journey has begun to emerge from stasis…hibernation…coma…whatever. Liana is back, y’all.
I want to award my Pink Rose Awards to some of my other peeps who have been with me along the journey.
To my dear Millie of Out, Damned Egg, Out I Say!, I award this rose for all her support, love, and understanding through every part of the infertility journey. She and I are sisters of the head and of the heart. I would never had made it to this place of healing without her. I am hoping, praying, wishing, casting spells, standing on my head, and doing anything possible to influence the fates to bring a child into her home very soon.
My other awardee is a password-protected blogger. Beagle of Cats in the Cradle is such a wonderful, emotive, and thoughtful blogger. Her posts are evocative and sometimes heart wrenching in their emotional honesty, and you gain so much by her sharing. I am asking the fates for a baby intervention for her as well.
There are so many others who I love here in Blogland that I cannot begin to list you all. Thanks for all your support, guidance and friendship. I award all of you pink roses!
The rules are as follows:
1. On your blog, copy and paste the award, these rules, a link back to the person who selected you, and a link to this post. You will find the story behind the Pink Rose Award and other graphics to choose from there.
2. Select as many award recipients as you would like, link to their blogs (if they have one), and explain why you have chosen them.
3. Let them know that you have selected them for an award by commenting on one of their posts.
4. If you are selected, pass it on by giving the Pink Rose Award to others.
5. If you find that someone you want to nominate has already been selected by someone else, you can still honor them by posting a comment on their award post stating your reasons for wishing to grant them the award.
6. You do not have to wait until someone nominates you to nominate someone else.