I Am Still A Little Queasy

Just when I was acknowledging that my day was on the road toward a decidedly downward spiral, I found some yummy-looking peanut butter crackers in the back of my desk drawer at school that I had bought during the early part of my pregnancy for emergency snacking. It was kind of like finding a 5 dollar bill in a pair of pants that you haven't worn for a few weeks; what luck! I thought to myself. I ripped open the plastic wrap and, as the first cracker was just inches from my mouth, saw that it was in fact crawling with tiny slugs.

Am I wrong to think that this just shouldn't happen?

Pregnancy Brain??

It's been two full months since I've written, and I blame it on one thing: my total inability to recall simple vocabulary words, much less string together a few of them in order to create some kind of witty blog entry. I don't know if it's because it's my third full year of teaching a low-level ELL class, or if it's the much-talked-about "pregnancy brain" that has made me dim, but something is up.

In addition to my conversation being constantly reduced to "likes" and "ums," I also am forgetting things left and right. I have always prided myself on my rock-solid organizational skills, never worrying about spacing a social engagement or flubbing an appointment. But on Wednesday, I truly reached a new low when attempting to meet a friend for dinner. Not only did I get the time wrong, but I actually got the restaurant wrong. I was wandering through the restaurant on my cell phone ("You're in the back? Okay, I'm looking for you...what side, exactly?"), even enlisting the help of the hostess before calling my husband to double-check my calendar to see where exactly we were supposed to be meeting.

I'm contemplating complete hibernation for the remainder of this pregnancy.

Tomorrow Is Friday, Which Is Always A Good Thing To Be Able To Say

It's been one of those weeks that I'm not at all sorry to say good-bye to. Today, for example, began with a surprise formal observation by my supervisor, and ended with a very angry administrator in my classroom, chewing out my students--via an interpreter--for blocking the emergency exit with their prayer rugs during a fire drill.

But next week will be better, because while the building is attemping a fire-drill-take-two, I will be knitting in the craft room at Holden Village, where fire danger is admittedly more imminent (the villagers were evacuated for a couple of weeks earlier this fall due to forest fires in the area), but at least Lutherans are far too obedient to botch fire drills.

There Is No Basement In My Honda Civic

The one good thing about being stuck in rush hour on 94 during a tornado warning yesterday, is that the wind, rain and hail were so deafening that I couldn't hear the sirens and didn't know that a tornado had been spotted in the very suburb I was headed to.

Life Is Good

So my brother-in-law, Patrick, is something of a godsend. Yesterday, after a long day at work that culminated in the discovery that my car had been hit sometime during the school day, I arrived home in a state of exhaustion that barely allowed me to even kick off my shoes before collapsing on the couch.

I had been fully prepared to beg one of them to bring me cereal on that couch, but miracle of miracles, Patrick and Mark had already fired up the grill and were both hard at work in the kitchen, preparing dinner. Without even being asked. And when I weakly, guiltily squeaked, "What can I do to help?" Patrick said this: "Nothing. Go lie down. We'll call you when it's ready."

And after a very respectable meal, Patrick watched six episodes of The Office: Season 3 with me and didn't even get grossed out during my laughing-induced phlegmy coughing fits.

Heaven, heaven, I tell you.

I'm Sick of Spinach

I'm pretty sure that an extra-large slice of creamy french silk pie and one of those heavenly bottomless pots of coffee from Bakers Square will not be found in the "pregnancy diet" chapter in "What to Expect When You're Expecting."

But it was all so good. I'm positive that baby is as happy as I am right now.

WOOF

This is what my husband brought me from Patina yesterday. A candle with a dog on it. After my incredulous reaction ("You bought me a candle with a dog on it??"), he admitted that he hadn't noticed it had a dog on it.