The One About the News

I'm going to stop following the news for a while. It's depressing hearing about poor billionaires whose companies are going out of business without a loan from the workers, I'm sick of hearing about psychopath mothers who bury their children in shallow graves a block away from their house, and the inept police force investigating the crimes. I don't care how the local sports teams are doing and could care less about what my tax dollars are doing in down town Rochester. I don't care anymore about who Obama puts in what position and I really don't care about the uproar from either side of the aisle. I don't even care who Minnesota's next senator will be. I don't care about the little old lady who has Parkinson's and voted for three candidates, nor do I care about her intent.

I rant, therefore I am.

On a lighter note, my pregnant wife is STILL sick. She throws up more than she eats, it's kind of scary. Most recently she has taken up puking into a bowl. Not such a bad idea, puke where you are, clean it up, forget about it. No need to run to a receptacle, let the receptacle come to you. No problem until you realize who has to empty the receptacle. I do my best to not add to the concoction, keeping my nose as far away as possible. I remember the good old days when her throwing up meant I had the disturbance of listening to it, until I turned the volume up on the TV. Now I have become an active participant. I will be singing the praises of the second trimester. I will rejoice and sing praise. I will dance through the streets. People will lock their doors and bring their kids out from the streets. Police will swarm, and I will be detained. But it will all be worthwhile, for the second trimester will have arrived.

Merry Christmas and God Bless!

The One About Gift Giving

For the first time in my life I'm going to send out Christmas cards with a letter. Rachel picked out the stationary and I got to use some creativity in writing it. I'll try to put the girls to work stuffing envelopes and sticking on the stamps. Remember when you used to have to lick stamps?

I'm not quite done with my Christmas shopping yet. I always have a problem with getting the perfect gift. I always feel like the gift is somehow beneath the recipient. I think about getting flowers for Rachel and I imagine her getting them and thinking, "Gee, roses? They're for guys who cheat on their wives." or "Yellow flowers? I don't want yellow flowers in my house. What am I going to do with yellow flowers? If only he had gotten me blue flowers. There's something I could work with." So I start picking out blue flowers, and it hits me again, "Blue flowers? Doesn't he love me? If he loved me he'd get me daisies and lilies and wild flowers." So I start looking for wild flowers and it hits me, She wouldn't say anything like that. She would be so grateful for me even thinking of her that I'm afraid she would faint. Yes, she would faint if I bought her flowers. That would hurt the baby. I'd better not do it. Besides, she's more practical, she'd want me to use the money to pay down the debt from the wedding. (Do you see the next trend coming?) In fact, she'd probably get mad at me for spending money at all. She'd say "Flowers? Delivered? What did you spend on these, $50?" I'd stammer for a few seconds, then come out with it, "Yes, $55." and she'd say "$55 for flowers? They're going to die in a 3 days. That's $18 per day for flowers to be in the house. We can't afford $18 per day!" Again, she'd never said those things. In fact, she's never said anything like that before. There's no reason to think that she'd be mad at me for buying her flowers, or for spending an average of $18 per day on anything, if I really wanted to get it. So the flowers go unpurchased, the extra gift stays on the rack, and I put the money in my wallet and it ends up going to purchase overpriced soda in the vending machine at work.

So this Christmas, I'm going to focus on giving gifts for the feeling I get in giving them. I'm not going to worry about what color someone likes or if a certain style might not be their taste. I'll give a gift receipt, and when mom opens her camaflauged wading boots she'll at least have some good conversation for her co-workers.

The One About Baby's First Ultrasound

It's official, there's a bun in the oven. We saw the little guy/gal wiggling around, saw a heart beat, got to hear a heart beat through the ultrasound machine, got some measurements. We found out that we're only 9 weeks in, so we're a little earlier than we thought.

The one about ASL class last night

In our ASL class last night Rachel's assignment was to do a family structure. She talked about her sister and brother and how we're married and I have two daughters. Then she signed that she was pregnant with our first child. The teacher was overjoyed, it was so funny. She has taken such an iterest in us because it's the first married couple she's ever had in her class.

Rachel's been sick a lot over the past few days. To be honest, I'm pretty sure she's actually happy about it. It's been the first tangable symptom of being pregnant since the positive test. Our first ultrasound is Friday. We won't be able to determine gender for a few more weeks, but we should be able to get some pictures.

The One About Being Passed By A Little Rascal Mobility Device

Once again I ventured out onto the pavement without adult supervision to attempt exercise and once again it was a trying attempt to say the least. I was able to leave the dogs behind this time, vowing to again run with a partner once I determine the difference between my behind and the hole in the back yard. I chose a lighter pair of shorts and was rewarded with not once having to tug at them. I also chose different headphones, but once again I was betrayed. This style has a rubber piece that is supposed to fit into the ear canal and block ambient noise as well. FYI, don't block out ambient noise when running on the street. It wasn't a car that scared me out of my shoes, it was a dog. It wasn't a pit bull or Rottweiler. It was a small terrier about the size of Neela. After I climbed out of the tree and noticed it was an ankle biter that sent me shrieking like a little girl spotting a spider, I looked around me and noticed curtains shutting and I swore I could see the dog pointing and laughing. Once I started sweating, the rubber on the headphones became lubricated and no longer stayed anywhere but dangling from my arm. I will find a pair that work for me, if it's the last thing I do. I did shave 9 seconds off my mile bringing me to 10 minutes, 21 seconds. Fat people laugh at me when I run, and spin circles around me on their Little Rascals.

I was telling Tom about my run yesterday and he came up with a suggestion I wish I would have thought of. He said "Why didn't you just tie the headphones around your waist to hold your shorts up?" And that's why Tom lives in a bigger house than me.

I completed my New Employee Orientation at Mayo and am now an official employee complete with name badge and paycheck. I set a goal three years ago that I was going to become a Mayo employee and I finally achieved that goal.

My next goal is to graduate college. Look out, year 2019, I'm coming. Somewhere, off in the distance, I can faintly make out a chuckle between bites of a Ho-Ho.

The One About The First Run of the Year

I ran today. I should say that I attempted to run. I didn't plan on running when I woke up this morning. I felt better after being sick for almost two weeks, I lost 12 pounds while sick and wanted to turn that into a good thing, so I decided that I would go for a run. I grabbed an i-pod and a dog and headed out the door. But it wasn't that easy, the i-pod wasn't charged and I couldn't find a dog leash. So half an hour later I was off. I didn't get 50 meters into it when I realized the headphones I grabbed were going to betray me. After another 50 meters I realized I wore the wrong shorts to run in. They would slide down my backside systematically every 15 steps. I thought I could roll them a couple of times at the waist to be a little tighter. I really had to hike them up now so the rolled waist of the shorts was over my hips enough to stay on. This made the inseam of the shorts about 5 inches shorter than designed. I didn't have anything to brace the i-pod, so I just held it in my hand. So I had an i-pod in one hand, the dog leash in the other, and I was off. So put this image in your memory for times when Bill needs to be taken down a few notches: A fat guy running down the street with a 7 pound overactive, inattentive, and unwilling dog on a leash in one hand, an i-pod in the other, wearing shorts that are rolled at the waist and way too short and simultaneously riding up his crack and falling down. And ever time he reached down to pull them up, the too short headphone cable ripped the headphones out of his ears. When finally getting the pants crammed far enough up his butt so they wouldn't fall, and unable to reach up to his ear with the arm with the hyperactive dog, had to bend over to put the earphones back into his ears, one at a time, then had to reach down to tug at the pants again, all while spinning in circles to keep the dog from tripping over the leash. I did this for about a quarter of a mile before switching dogs. Having the other dog alleviated the problem with the spinning and I had control of both hands so I could concentrate on cramming my headphones back into my ears and tugging at my shorts. I actually got into a rhythm just over half a mile in. Step, step, right ear, step step, tug, step, step, left ear, step, step, "C'mon puppy," step, step, right ear...

The one about being sick

Wow, what a great couple of weeks! After the wedding we went to Costa Rica, swam in the ocean, lived in luxury for 8 nights, took a tour through a tropical rain forest, saw an active volcano (I'm part of only 3% of the world's population who lived to tell about it), relaxed in the hot springs fed by the volcano, saw the second largest freshwater lake in the world, went whitewater rafting down the "Colorado" River, went horseback riding, went down the "world's largest water slide," saw a baby tarantula, relaxed in more volcano fed hot springs, went on a zip line canopy tour of the tropical dry forest. We saw 3 of the 4 types of monkeys in Costa Rica, the howler was the most common type we saw. We also saw a sloth hanging from a power line. We have some great shots of their raccoons. The animals weren't even concerned with people, with the exception of the monkeys using us for target practice.

The hotel had everything, including a swim-up bar. We still had time to watch the Simpson's in Spanish. My favorite line was when Marge held her eye and exclaimed "Oh, Mi ojo." The food ranged from steak and pasta to Asian fusion. We dined in some pretty fancy places and ate some elegant cuisine. It was probably at the Asian fusion where I got sick. Did I mention that they had a swim up bar?

We got back on a Monday night very late. I went back to work on Thursday and it was fairly uneventful. On Friday I noticed I wasn't very hungry and my stomach started acting up. By Friday night I was in the ER thinking it was Malaria. I got bit by a few mosquitos, they love the taste of Bill. It wasn't Malaria, they said it was traveler's sickness and I took 3 days of Cipro, but by Monday evening there was no improvement. It's now Wednesday and I'm awaiting a call from the nurse to tell me it is a parasite. Apparently there's only one way to check to see if you have parasites. I feel traumatized.