Thursday, January 29, 2009

What or Whom Can I Blame (Other Than Myself)?

I had an early morning doctor's appointment today. Check in at 7:45, see the doc at 8:00. Gavin slept so-so last night. I slept so-so last night; it took me about a half hour to fall back asleep after the 3 am feeding which put me in slumber land by 4. Then Gavin wanted to be topped off at 6:30 and I managed to eek out 30 more minutes of sleep before we all rolled out of bed and stumbled out the door.

Ryan drove in circles looking for my doctor's office. It's been like 5 years since I've seen this particular one so I couldn't remember where the building was - but I did have the address. I called and found out they were in the same building as my physical therapist - I've been going there off and on for 5 years. And there we were driving around looking for the office that I've been to a million times.

Interruption:

GRR! There is a kinda crazy dude talking to this young mom, whose boyfriend, not the father of the baby, is 16 years older than her. The crazy dude's girlfriend is 4 years younger than him. They've been dating for a long time. She was 15 and he was 19 when they started dating. His speech is slightly slurred but not because he's drunk. His conversation, loud and annoying, sways from his wanting children, to the kind of Starbucks drinks he likes to Barak Obama and I don't know what else. Oooh. Silence. He just went to retrieve his drink. He'll be back too soon; it's a tiny store.

Great. Now he's critiquing his drink.

This must be some sort of regular hang out for a group. When I first arrived the young mom's baby was with some other dude and young lady. I thought he was the dad and the woman was the mom. But the 'mom' stood up and left. Then another woman came over and sat down. Then the real mom came. We chatted briefly about how nice the Starbucks high chairs are. She's nice enough. Then groups of people coming by talk to her. And to crazy dude.

Now mom, baby and annoying crazy dude are leaving.

Sweet, sweet quiet. Relatively speaking. You can still hear the baristas taking orders, other customers chatting and Ryan Adams singing from the speakers but in the absence of crazy babble it sounds like serenity.

Back to my story where I need to assign blame.

Ryan drops me off and I go to the 3rd floor to check in. I scan the signs to see if I'm supposed to check in on the left, in the center or on the right side of the massive waiting room. I see the specialty of my doc and proceed to the right. The receptionist can't find an appointment for April Jones. That's because I'm April Jahns. I understand. When I state my name and immediately spell my last name people think I'm being obnoxious because, really, who can't spell Jones? Then they realize I wasn't spelling Jones so I spell it a second and third time.

The receptionist said, "Oh, it looks like you've been cancelled."

Me: "What?" I checked in on time, not late.

Receptionist: "The doctor must have had an emergency."

Me: I was internally really annoyed but since I worked in health care for years I understand the nature of the business. "Eh?"

Receptionist: "Oh. You're appointment is for February 5th."

Me: "Eh?" SO glad I didn't cop a horrible attitude - at least not a huge attitude.

By time I realized what my huge blunder was Ryan was well on his way to the gym with Gavin. I stayed and filled out the mountain of paper work for next week's appointment all the while trying to figure out how I'm going to tell Ryan I hustled us out of the house early for no reason - and we get to repeat it next week.

So, here I sit at Starbucks on First Hill waiting for a call from Ryan to tell me he is near. OK. Another funny overheard story that you don't expect to hear in Seattle. The dude to my right is talking about a big load of hay coming in that he has to help unload because Manny can't do it all by himself. I think it's funny because, like I said, I'm downtown (as far as non-Seattlites are concerned it's downtown). Not a whole lot of horse and hay stories to be had here.

I think I'm pretty safe if I blame it on fatigue since two nights ago I got maybe 3 hours of sleep. Not Gavin's fault. It was my brain. It wouldn't shut off so I played Ryan's Nintendo DS until I gave myself a headache (and gave myself a cushy lead with the high score in the 3 games I play on one of his cartridges). Oh, another weird thing happened. I hallucinated a scent. I smelled cigarette smoke and became nauseous. It lasted a few minutes. Bizarre.

Lack of sleep coupled with a measly half hour nap followed by so-so sleep could cause even the best of us to confuse our appointment times. Even at my best I'm still a little scattered. Maybe Ryan won't ask me how my appointment went and he can find out by reading this post. But no. I married a considerate, thoughtful man who cares about my health. And he married a woman who can spin this story to make him laugh. Eventually.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Rum in the Tum Tum is Fun

When I'm lying in bed at 2 a.m. I have so many great subjects swirling around in my head that I want to write about. The same is true when I'm in the car or in the shower but not so much when I'm sitting down in front of the computer.

Something just struck me as odd. In the last paragraph I wrote "sitting down". How else can one sit? Up? Sideways? Upside down? I'm such a word nerd. Or, werd nerd (visualize me crossing my arms over my chest with my hands forming a 'W'). 'Sup.

OK... now I'm just a regular nerd.

Speaking of words, Ryan and I having ourselves a little disagreement about what makes a rhyme a rhyme. He was playing with Gavin after bathtime and before you knew it a slew of silliness was flowing from Ryan. There was something about Gavin's bum and tum tum and rum in said tum tum (I know, tsk, tsk and for the record I denounce any giving of rum or any other spirits to babies) and it was at this point Ryan ran out of words that rhyme with rum so I piped up and said, "fun."

Ryan said fun does not rhyme with rum because it ends with an 'm' and not an 'n'. Sure, I could go to the dictionary and look up onomatopoeia and alliteration and try to remember all of the other words from English class that a true word nerd would know (guess that makes me a poser) that pertain to the repetition of sounds and consonants and vowels and such but eh... I'm putting it to the masses (that's you, dear reader).

Does fun rhyme with rum?

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

All By Myself

Recently mornings have been all about daddy/son time in our household. Or as I like to call it, Mommy's extra sleep time. Ryan has been taking Gavin with him to the gym in the morning which allows me to sleep in because our boy still has snack attacks at 2:30 in the morning. Of course the voracious day time eater becomes a leisurely nighttime connoisseur. He is hungry and tired which is such a bad combination; for me at least. It takes him about a half hour to eat; by comparison he can top off his tummy in the day time in under 10 minutes. Needless to say I really appreciate my morning nap.

This morning was no different as the previous night was no different. I brought Gavin in to bed shortly after his 6 am wake up call and nursed him. The little G eventually made it impossible for Ryan to pretend he was sleeping any longer so he hauled himself out of bed and took Gavin into the living room. I rolled over and dozed off until 10:45!

Wow! Almost 4 hours of uninterrupted sleep! That's the norm for uninterrupted sleep I get at night. It was such a treat!

When I finally made my grand debut in the living room there were some lovely flowers and a mylar 'Happy Birthday' balloon waiting to greet me. It was such a nice way to start the day. And to make the day even better I had lunch at Blue Willow in West Seattle with a fellow birthday gal and was able to just chat at a nice leisurely, uninterrupted pace since Ryan had Gavin with him at home. After lunch I visited with some people from my old office then headed to the Department of Licensing to renew my license.

Walking into the DOL I scanned the room to try and get a feel of how long my wait would be. The room was quite large and over half of the chairs were occupied. After examining a board detailing the services offered I pressed the button next to 'first time license/renewal of license'. It spit out a ticket stamped 1:34pm 1/13/2009 #238.

Two thirty eight I said to myself as I held my breath before looking to the digital signs hanging above the employee stations. Staring back at me were some ugly red numbers 176. I felt myself deflate a little.

There I sat in a chair in the front of the room. I knew I was going to be there a long time and I didn't want to spend that time staring at the back of other people's heads so I offered up my head to be stared at.

Thank the good Lord above for cell phones. I was able to talk to my mom while she was on her lunch break at work. I talked to my li'l bro Joel while he was on his way home from work and I talked briefly to my Aunt Paulette. Even with all three conversations which probably totaled 30 minutes I still had an hour and a half of nothing. Nothing. I didn't plan ahead. If I had I would have brought a magazine to read. Two magazines. Three magazines.

Here is the sad part. I didn't start to get antsy until about #220. I was kind of enjoying just sitting there and doing nothing. I enjoyed just having my thoughts to keep me company. My thoughts are great in number if not great in substance. I watched the DOL employees as they helped customers. I watched as they interacted with each other. I tried to imagine how they felt working there, day after day, year in and year out. I recognized a number of the employees from my 2 or 3 trips there in the 7 years I've lived in Seattle. It goes to show that each trip takes such an inordinate amount of time that I'm able to recognize the employees after years of not seeing them.

At least the guy who helped me was really nice and in a great mood. He laughed when I tried to read the letters in the vision testing machine without my glasses. "Try it with your glasses," he said. "Drat!" I grumbled, "I managed to go all these years without needing correction."

"Yeah, you were failing pretty miserably. Sucks getting older, huh?" he said without sounding the least bit mean.

I was out the door at 3:44 with my temporary license but my day was not over. Since I wasn't ready to go home I went to Nail Time and had a manicure and pedicure. I only felt a little guilty that I spent next to no time at home with Ryan and Gavin but only a tiny bit. The only other time I have spent this much time alone was last year at Easter when Ryan took Gavin to his mom's while I stayed home because I was sick.

After I was scrubbed, buffed and polished I walked to the Junction for a little birthday sweet treat. Walking past Cupcake Royale and their superb coffee wasn't too difficult because half way up the block on California Avenue Coffee to a Tea With Sugar was waiting for me with their delectable cupcakes. I picked the baristas brain on the sugary confections and called Ryan to see if he wanted the plain Jane cupcakes or the orange, lemon, raspberry, red velvet or mint cupcake. He opted for the chocolate cupcake with mint frosting. Sounds good but I believe it pales in comparison to the Chocolate Decadence cupcake. It should really be called Death by Chocolate since it is filled with chocolate ganache, frosted with chocolate and topped with squiggles of more chocolate ganache.

Y-U-M.

Today was such a great birthday. Aside from lunch I spent it all by myself and you know what, I ain't half bad company. I love my son but it is so nice, at least once in a while, have a whole day to yourself. And by once in a while I guess I mean once a year.

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

The Dissolution of (my) Resolution

Every year when the calendar flips from December to January many of us think of ways we can better ourselves. We resolve to quit smoking, to organize our closets, to lose weight, to move one step closer to perfection. Sure no one actually says their resolution is to become perfect but isn't that what the resolutions are all about? Trying to channel our inner ideal.

I long ago gave up making New Years resolutions. Every year I would make a list and every year I would break every last resolution. I still fought with my brothers, didn't help my mom around the house as much as I could have, didn't read my bible every day and I certainly did not keep my room clean. This year is no different, I made no list of promises to break so I can just feel bad about myself. I haven't made any resolutions; not really.

For Christmas I was given the book Eat to Live by my mother-in-law - she gave it to everyone because she loved it so much. I read the book over three days and I grew more and more excited about applying what I was learning to my diet. My goal was to see if I really could lose 20 pounds in 6 weeks like the doctor promised in his book. If the diet worked for the first 6 weeks then I would continue until I lost the 50 pounds I've gained since I was 18.

The weight has come on so gradual that I'm shocked when I see myself in the mirror. 3.5 pounds a year really adds up after 13 years. In my head I'm still the skinny girl who of course thought she was fat. If I could go back in time and slap myself I would. Then after I slapped me I would tell myself to be wary of fast food and soda and the biggest enemy out there - time and it's evil effect on metabolism. I'm not that skinny girl anymore it's more like I'm the girl who ate the skinny girl.

Dr. Fuhrman, the author of Eat to Live, is pretty down on meat and dairy, he's basically vegan. He makes some good arguments for a vegetarian diet and he sites study after study after study about how harmful the consumption of animal proteins is harmful to human health. He's also not a fan of refined carbohydrates. His 6 week diet is very strict. Absolutely nothing that is an animal or came from an animal. Sucky. I like animals seeing as how they are so darn tasty.

Ryan was starting a diet on January 1st so I decided my 'go' date would be the first as well. On New Year's Day I went to Trader Joe's to stock up on fruits, vegetables, whole wheat pita bread, beans, beans and more beans and nuts. Trader Joe's was closed and as much as I wanted to delay this new way of eating I went a few blocks east to Safeway where I spent an inordinate amount of time in the produce department. My cart was overflowing with fruits and vegetables, it looked like I was on my way to start my own produce stand.

On the Eat to Live diet you don't count calories because it would be impossible to eat so much lettuce that you gain weight. Oh, the lettuce! Two big salads a day. Of course there isn't dressing to go with the salad. Well, not good dressing. No Newman's Own Balsamic Vinaigrette. He gave a recipe for some Apple Pie Salad dressing. Sorry, but a shredded apple with some cinnamon and orange juice may be sweet and tasty but it does not taste like and apple pie and it is kind of bizarre on a romaine salad.

I was a good girl for a while and by a while I mean 3 and a half days. I ate homemade hummus made without a drop of oil - it was pretty good, I ate lots and lots of salads, some oatmeal without so much as a grain of sugar or dollop of butter or splash of milk, I ate broccoli and Amy's vegan chili (yummy). As each day wore on I grew grumpier and grumpier. I wasn't hungry and if I did get hungry I would eat and apple or an orange. I just don't like having anything off limits to me.

I pooped out at dinner time on day 4. We were having some friends come over and I didn't want to eat something different from everyone else. So I'm off the Eat to Live diet but my diet is better for having read the book. I'm eating many more fruits and vegetables which, besides being good for you, fill you up so you have less room (and less desire) for other less healthy foods.

My new diet is one I like to call Moderation. We'll see how it goes.

****

Please don't post comments that resemble anything like the following:

"April! Really. You will be too skinny if you lose 50 pounds!"

"C'mon! You look great! Everyone loves curves."

"Seriously, you look normal."

To the above comments I read (envision Charlie Brown's teacher talking): "Wah, wah, wah, wah."

50 pounds, people. 5-0. Not cool.

Monday, January 05, 2009

Irritated

Ugh. It has been quite a while since I've done anything but post pictures so I want to write. Really. I do want to. I'm just too darn antsy to write and listening to Bob meow in our bedroom is driving me batty. That and the spots on my glasses area really annoying. I should clean them but I don't want to use just anything to clean the lenses and the special cleaning cloth is in the car and I don't want to go trekking outside in the 2.5+ inches of fresh fallen snow so I can clean my glasses. The dog is snoring, my throat is a little sore and I want to eat chocolate. I am so grumpy I should just go to bed, it is midnight after all and I would go to bed if I was tired. Oh, this sleepless state is doing nothing to improve my mood. If I'm not careful I'm going to etch some nasty scowl wrinkles into my forehead.

Hopefully my mood will be greatly improved tomorrow and I can write about Christmas and my 3 and 2/3 day diet. If the snow is still present and I'm stuck at home and my sewing class is cancelled (or it is not cancelled but I can't get to it) then I suspect my mood will deteriorate even further which will compel me to walk to Victrola coffee for a tasty coffee concoction or hot chocolate.