TMI ahead….

When you throw up 4-5 times a day and you constantly feel like you just ate three double bacon cheeseburgers and then rode the teacups, suddenly your world gets new priorities.    Drinking diluted juice or gatorade and keeping Jamie alive is the highest priority, dishes, cooking, eating, laundry etc become about as important as cleaning behind the refrigerator. 

Today I made sauce which is pretty much the first thing I’ve attempted to cook in weeks.  I had all the meat in the fridge and some of it had already been thawed from the freezer so I either had to cook it or throw it all away.   Unfortunately there is nothing more gross to me right now than the dead, lifeless flesh and carcass of another animal, but I plugged my nose, sort of squinted my eyes while imagining I was in a beautiful, scent-free paradise and I dug in.   I got the sausage and steak done and was working on the meat balls when my stomach couldn’t take it any longer.   I was up to my elbows in raw, ground beef and throwing up in the sink (conveniently located right next to me), when Jamie said “uh oh” and I turned around and saw this.

…but replace the poochie lip with a smirk.  The smirk disappeared as soon as I yelled “NOOO!” at the top of my lungs.   To his credit he properly froze when I ordered him too and didn’t move until I quickly washed my hands, wiped my mouth and grabbed my camera.   Otherwise this whole disaster would have been completely wasted for posterities sake.

If anyone has any suggestions for getting crisco type cream out of clothing and upholstery I’d be very grateful.

I need a double, dirty martini with three olives, and a trip to the shooting range, or at the very least a pillow to scream in and a punching bag to hit. 

We have insurance that covers maternity, but the deductable makes you rub your eyes and gulp, so we applied to the AIM program which is my socialist state’s bandaid for the insurance problems faced by self employed people.   You only qualify if you make within a certain income bracket (too rich for medicare, too poor for good insurance).  Jim and I crunched the numbers and we came well within the correct amount.

But today we got a letter saying our application had been rejected because we make too little.   sigh.

So I went over all our paperwork again and redid all the math and it still looked fine.  Which frustrates the hell out of me when I can’t get my brain wrapped around something.  Luckily you can resubmit with new information and have it reviewed, but I didn’t want to send in the same (correct in my opinion) paperwork and have them say the same exact thing.    I put Jamie in front of spongebob, gathered a calculator, all the paperwork and called the help line.   Apparently nobody there speaks English, and they’ve been only taught to say “you no make enough money” over. and. over.    I tried wording my questions a variety of ways, asking her to verify or repeat numbers, and explain the process by which they got said “you no make enough money”.  But nothing doing.    I thanked her for her time and got off the phone.    I did manage to find out we were $59 short of meeting the required income so I sat down with the calculator and tried to figure out what happened and I discovered that if you divided Jim’s income by 12 instead of 11 (which was the correct number) then you come up with a number thats $59 short.  So I called again. Talked to a different person and got the same exact line repeated to me.  I asked to talk to someone else and got the same response.  I don’t know if they all have a combined IQ of 94 or if they just think I have an IQ of a early evolved primate, but I’m SO beyond frustrated I’m just beside myself.  

I don’t know what to do.

It’s not even the end of the world because after all we do have insurance, and a several thousand dollar deductible is a heck of a lot better than tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, but for some reason I am a complete wreck.

Yup it’s true. 
 
I am still very early and not out of the woods yet.  My first ultrasound is next Tues, so I’ll know more then.  I’ve been rather ill which has everybody saying it’s a girl.  Meh, what is it about pregnancy that attracts old wives tales?  I admit I fall prey to musing over them myself. 

I’m determined to take a belly shot every week from now till the end.  Last Tuesday I was at 7 weeks and took the first picture.   It’s here if bare midriffs don’t offend you and pregnant bellies interest you (although I’m too early to be showing).   The little pooch you see is regular stomach flab and has nothing to do with a baby, so I guess this is officially square one.   Here’s to a happy healthy baby.

We girded our loins and faced The Strip last night.   It was a double date, me and Jim, plus Jeff and Gabrielle.  I had brought a cute little dress to wear, but after bragging that I packed us all in less than an hour, I went and forgot that it gets cold in the desert during the winter.  I brought no jacket and there was no way I was going to saunter down the strip with bare legs in 38 degree weather.  I ended up wearing black tights (which didn’t work at all), rather imposingly practical shoes, and a big puffy white jacket I bought at walmart for $10.  Needless to say I felt like a rather silly, ugly dolt walking amidst all the Jimmy Choos and Prada that everyone else was wearing.   I really don’t know how they do it.  I was freezing, even in my Ugly Betty clothes.  My nose was bright red and my feet were killing me despite the practicality of my shoes, and I really wanted to know what the secret was.  There were girls whose makeup was perfect, their feet looked blissfully happy in stiletto kitten heals and their skirts somehow defied the laws of physics and miraculously stayed put.   It must be an art.   …one that still eludes me. 

We had a blast though.  We ate at the Bellagio in a restaurant called Fix.   It was the kind of place where they put your napkins on your lap for you, and escort you to the restroom when needed.   Our water glasses were filled with Pellegrino and the wine list exceeded our yearly income.   We had lobster tacos with mango salsa,  scallops benedict with a grape reduction, rib eye steak with a peppercorn sauce and sliders with kobe beef and aged cheddar.   For dessert we had banana bread pudding with coconut icecream and freshly made spiced donuts with peanut butter and chocolate fondue.  Everything tasted amazing, and every bite was worth it.  Jim’s cousin Jonathan worked there, so some of it was on the house, still our bill came to over $200.   Fortunately, Jeff won $200 on the quarter slot machine so basically the evening cost us nothing. 

Here we are at the Bellagio

Looking out from the Bellagio at the rest of The Strip. 

No post meal guilt this Thanksgiving.  Every bite felt well earned.

We are in Las Vegas now where we spent/spending Thanksgiving with Jim’s aunt, uncle, cousins and assorted biker friends.   Thanksgiving morning, Jim’s cousin Jonathan suggested we go for a “walk” through Red Rock state park which is just ten minutes outside Las Vegas.  

We got about thirty feet into a 2.5 mile trail, before we were distracted by a giant rock and went scrambling up the face to admire the view.  Like children chasing elusive unicorns through the woods, we kept going in further and further, the real trail utterly abandoned and forgotten.  After ten minutes we were completely unable to turn back, we could only keep going forward.   Climbing, shimmying and wedging our way through cliffs, canyons and caves.  Nearly three hours later we emerged exhausted at the end. …at least I was exhausted.   I couldn’t move the next day I had so many sore muscles, but it was fun.  More fun than Disney Land or roller coasters.   Reminded me of camping at Joshua Tree as a child, even back then I thought rock climbing was more fun than anything else, the only exception being that back then I never got sore muscles and I never ruined name brand jeans. 

Here I am standing at the beginning of the trail, and that’s the giant rock that seduced us.

Resting half way up said rock.

Looking back at what we just climbed through.

Shimmying down what was coined “the elephants buttcrack”

Way too much fun. 

Good times…

Saturday we went out on a double date with Katie and Daniel.  I’m shooting their wedding next July, and I took some pictures, so I could get a feel for how they interact (and to make sure they still like my style).

We had too much fun.

  We laughed, We cried.  It moved me Bob.

While we were taking pictures, we heard this wonderful guitar music.  Turns out we were being serenaded by a gifted, armless man, who was playing fabulously with his feet.

After we had taken pictures to our hearts content…. we sat down for a picnic of wine and cheese.  YUM.

The rest of the pictures are on my flickr.

We are home and safe, although there’s some confusion as to whether or not we’re still supposed to be evacuated.  They never actually told us it was safe to go home, but a fire official we talked to said that there was only a 5% chance we’d be in danger again.

This is what our house looks like normally.  (you’ll notice from Jamie’s size that this picture is old)

This is what it looks like evacuated.  We were told to put all the blinds and drapes in the middle of the room, to prevent them from spontaneously combusting.

Funny thing we learned about ourselves.  We really don’t own that much important stuff.  We loaded up the car with all the essentials and discovered it only filled about half the trunk.  After laughing at ourselves we started loading up anything that held a monetary value over $100 or anything that we didn’t feel like replacing.  Besides the furniture we pretty much emptied our house into our car. lol

The fires are still burning, but I think we’re pretty safe now.  The TV said that one day of normal breathing is equivalent to 1/2 to 1 pack of cigarettes depending where in the county you live.  Given the media’s fondness for hyperbole, I’m not sure how accurate that is, but regardless… bleh.  Here’s the view outside last night, and that’s not smog or fog.

We were evacuated at 5:00 pm.  

Right now we are at the Smiths house in Santee watching the news.   It looks like the fire is at the north end of Puetz Valley (Puetz Valley is where we live).  The blogs and message boards seem to imply our house is not touched yet.  Please Pray it stays that way.

well…we decided to evacuate the horses.  The county has declared the Del Mar Fairgrounds as an evacuation refuge for horses/cattle etc.   

This fire is moving around so fast and in so many different directions that we’re erring on the side of caution and getting the horses out since they take a lot of time to load up. 

I obviously didn’t go to bed.

All I could think of when I loaded up the car was how much time and effort it was going to take me to sort out all this stuff and put it away tomorrow.

Well… *huge sigh*  It’s that time of the year again.   The Santa Ana winds have made their sinister, annual appearance and true to tradition,  I’m packing up important papers and Jim is hooking up the horse trailer for Aunt Patti, preparing for the possible evacuation.    Every year everyone anxiously wrings their hands hoping there will be no fires during the Santa Anas and every year there are always fires.  You’d think we’d all just learn to pack our bags come Oct 1st.

This time there are currently two fires in San Diego County.  One in the South and one in North, we’re right in the middle of them actually.   I’m not really worried.  Neither of them are headed toward us. …of course everyone is quick to remind me that in 03′ the fire wasn’t headed toward us either.  And yet in a matter of hours the fire whipped around and burned this ranch and everything around it to the ground.  However, what are the chances of this place burning down twice?  Not to mention all the years that’s never happen.  I think people actually enjoy going into hysteria. 

My face is so dry it feels like it’s cracking every time I smile.  And
somehow the dust manages to find it’s way in the house despite all the
closed windows and doors, consequently the floor has a layer of fine
dust on it that makes my feet very unhappy…and a little unstable. 
You can almost iceskate on the tile floor my feet are so dry and the
floor is so dusty.

Anyway, I’m off to bed.  If we’re evacuated 911 will call us.  How cool is that?