Tag Archives: Miscellaneous

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Books and Screen

I’m a huge fan of the Songs of Ice and Fire book series, which also makes me a huge fan of the Game of Thrones HBO series. Thankfully I got my boxed set in the mail and I’m ready to get my marathon in before the season premiere next month. In case you’re wondering, I chose the Targaryen boxed set. (Team Dragon!) I bring this up because of every time I see a book gets turned into a movie or TV show, I cringe a little because they always change something that I feel hurt the core of the story. Thankfully, Game of Thrones is very faithful to the books and any changes were made for logical reasons and never changed anything too important to the story.

This leads me to my next point, with last night’s episode of the Walking Dead. First of all, I dislike Lori. Sorry, dislike doesn’t even begin to cover my feelings of dislike for her. How can you act like a dumb housewife in the middle of a zombie apocalypse? I was assured by my husband who actually read the comics that she wasn’t as dumb in the series, and I hope that’s right. They took all sorts of liberties with the comics, and hearing my husband mention them makes me happy I didn’t read the comics. I hate it when they change storyline that way. I hate it. (Maybe Wednesdays post I’ll make comparisons on how Cersei from Game of Thrones is portrayed differently from the series as Lori from the Walking Dead was.)

My last point: My Sister’s Keeper. I read the book, and it was a good book for what it was. I’ll read anything that’s suggested as good, but I don’t prefer that sort of sappy tear-jerker. I was interested to read it because I heard about the plot when the movie was released. I was ready to rent the DVD when it came out, and I read about it and decided I was too angry to bother with it. Why wouldn’t I read the spoilers to the movie, I read the book so there shouldn’t be too much to learn? I was wrong, and I’ll say “spoiler alert” here. The completely changed the outcome of the book. They changed the ending! I couldn’t believe it, and I vowed never to watch the movie.

Nothing upsets me more than reading a good book and watching something on the television, whether it be a movie or TV show, and have it ruined by Hollywood. It’s not bad enough they can’t come up with their own stories to tell, they have to ruin perfectly good books. I hope that if I ever become a famous writer that Hollywood wants my works, that they never ruin my stories that way. Well, it could be worse and they could be remaking The Great Gatsby again. Oh… crap.

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If You Think You’re Going Near Me With That, You’re Crazy.

Too often, I use things I see on television on either commercials or looking up from my book and seeing a reality show on. This leads me again to comment about those reality shows I come across. Let’s face it, some reality shows are more entertaining than most sitcoms because they are more bizarre than some of these screenwriters can even come up with. Like who would every dream up a storyline like the Carrot episode of “1000 Ways to Die”, which I have to say was one of my favorites.

My first case in point leads me to My Strange Addiction. I think they should rename this show to “Natural Selection At Its Finest”. I’ve seen commercials where someone will drink nail polish and another where someone drank gasoline. Does my first thought when I see this make me feel empathetic to the person who’s addicted to it? No, it really doesn’t. My first thought ends up at “something really bad needs to happen to that person for being so dumb”. I proved that point when I did watch and episode where someone used to sleep with a hair dryer on, and her daughter picked up on that habit. That’s what I call “inherited stupidity”. That’s why its natural selection, if you’re dumb enough to drink something like gasoline or nail polish, I hope for the sake of children everywhere that you don’t reproduce. Yes, I’m aware how judgmental and insulting this sounds, but also note I’m aware that I’m writing this with a sarcastic snicker and I don’t care.

Next brings me to these birthing shows I’ve had caught my eye more now than before. Thankfully, they reiterated a point today I’m standing by. First note: I’m not opposed to pain medicine during labor. To be graphic since the harsh language is appropriate in this case, that shit hurts. You should be a saint doing it naturally, trust me I know. They had an up-close shot of a woman getting an epidural and I thought “holy crap, if they think they are getting near me with that, them people are crazy.” It reinforced that having a needle stabbed in my spine that could paralyze me is something I will pass on and allow someone else to get it. Seriously, one slip and bad things happen, I’m not risking that because I have crap luck as it is. I don’t judge if you want it done, you can have it. I’ll just take my chances.

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Where Did They Go?

There comes a moment in everyone’s life where they hit a realization that they have dreaded. They deny it, but denial only gets you so far. You could try to fight it, but somehow it always wins. Or you could make a huge joke about it, and let everyone laugh with you.

The other day, I sat in front of a 5lb. container of pretzels I had recently opened. I looked at this container in horror as I saw that it was almost empty. I shrugged off my feelings of “holy cow, where did they go?”, and rationalized that everyone else had also been eating them and it was a week or two ago since we bought them. That was the denial stage. I looked down at my growing stomach in sadness of what I had just done to myself and thought that maybe I should avoid the snack aisle just in case. I suppose you could call that the “fight it” phase.

Then, there was the realization that it’s just easier to laugh about it. Like when you open a large jar of 20 pickles and the next thing you know your husband is laughing because you just ate them all. Yes, this is where we all laugh. At first, I wanted to cry. I couldn’t help it; I just needed to eat them. You always get further laughing about it though, and I laughed that maybe the baby just really loves them. Ok, maybe this could be considered denial by passing blame off to a fetus that can’t defend itself.

I’ve said it before; you never truly understand the feeling of “feeling fat” until you are either pregnant or morbidly obese. When I get back my skinny but to pre-baby size, I vow never to utter the words “I feel fat” ever again. Yes, I will work out every little hour of the day I can because I will get back to it. Until then, I will eat all the jars of pickles and pretzels I want. And I will enjoy every laugh second of it, because I’m pregnant and I can.

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Family Tree

To start today’s post I had a story about my family. Over the weekend, I finally decided it was time to splurge and get one of those fancy Teavana teapots. We did, bought some tea, and it was fun for my husband. It was like he was a kid, getting a toy he really wanted but never asked. In the process, the clerk offered me a sample of herbal tea. Being pregnant and unsure of what exactly was safe; I declined and stated that I was pregnant. His response? He looked at my husband and asked “is it yours?” Normally, I’d have a witty retort for this person, but I was too shocked someone would ask that. “Well gee, now that you mention it, I was just waiting for the right time.” It almost reminded me of a time my husband accompanied me to the doctor’s for my son, and the doctor looked at me uncertain and asked how tall the father was. When I said “Oh not much taller than me”, he looked at my husband and realized the foot difference between us. He finally let out a sigh of relief, not having to tell my husband that he wasn’t the father. (Because my husband is Asian, and my son isn’t so that was a subtle hint.) This isn’t the point of my blog today, I just felt like a story telling moment.

The point of the story is that I was reminded this weekend how much I love my boys and my future little one. If one of my children came to me and said “by the way, I think I’m gay”, I would love and accept them the same way I had before. As a parent, I think that you love your kids no matter what. Well, I admit if I had a serial killer for a son, I’d probably be a little less accepting of who they are. In general though, I think true parents love their kids unconditionally.

When I read about Kirk Cameron’s interview on the Piers Morgan show, I wasn’t shocked by him disagreeing with the idea of homosexuality since most radically religious people are. I don’t care that he’s “anti-gay”; if I did than what makes me better than him? You can’t preach acceptance for one belief system and not another. I don’t agree with him that gay people are unnatural and disgusting, I believe that thinking they are better than another person is wrong. My problem in the interview was the idea that someone who touts himself as a “good Christian” would ever not love his children for who they are. I think it’s unchristian to tell your kid you won’t love him if he’s gay. This is exactly why I don’t follow a religion. If you preach loving your neighbor, you shouldn’t in the same breath preach not accepting people for who they are.

I may not be a Christian, but I can love my friends and family for who they are. I accept them as people different from me, because it makes us better that way. I don’t need a religion to tell me what’s right or wrong, I had parents that raised me for that and a conscience of my own. Ok, a conscience of my own when I listen to it. I think before you start pushing your beliefs on other people, you should really listen to what you’re saying.

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And Then, I took the Test

A while back, shortly after I found out I was pregnant, I had to get my prenatal testings done. Among those tests included a Cystic Fibrosis genetic test, which they pretty much told me you had to take. The downside was, they told me that they might have to fight for the insurance to cover it. I tried to get out of the test, but it was important they said. So, I took it. When they’re already taking 20 tubes of blood out of you, what’s one more?

Now, 3 months later I opened up a bill from a genetic testing lab. It was more than sticker shock when I was facing a bill that said $713. Oh, I stared for a while thinking, “that can’t possibly be right”. That’s like the $800 bill I received when my son had the doctor take a pair of tweezers and pull a kleenex out of his nose. I had to get something done, and I get to go broke doing it? It’s amazing to me why people would possibly complain about the state of the healthcare system. <insert eye roll and sarcastic tone.

They assured me when I was signed up for this test, that they would fight the insurance company for me. Unfortunately, they were closed when I got this bill. Hopefully on Monday, I can get this straightened out because that’s terrible. Luckily, I was blessed with a very short temper and a quick to argue personality, which my mother just attributes to me being a bitch. Case in point, a DJ doesn’t show up for my Jack and Jill, and I got the night free and a discount on my wedding. Maybe luck will be on my side and this will go away without my pocket crying, and without too many medical professionals crying. I rather like most of the people that work there, and would like to continue going there. So, I hope people fix the healthcare system, because this is one of probably millions of cases daily that happen because CEO’s of these companies would rather have their 6th Audi or Lexus than make sure we get the care we need.

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The Church of The Fallen Soldier

I appreciate soldiers for everything they do for us as Americans. They fight wars, risk their lives for us to have the freedom to speak as we will. As a writer, and a very opinionated one at that, I love that I have the right to say whatever I want, when I want to. Essentially, they fight so I have the right to be a mouthyand I love that right. Thank you soldiers and the constitution for allowing me to live like a jerk.

I can’t help but to think of this when I read that the Westboro Church group went to a wake for a hometown soldier dying in a car crash. I’m glad they were able to celebrate their right of speech to protest a soldier’s wake. We live in a country where their voices are allowed to be heard, no matter how crazy we might think they are. Wait, I think I may have passed the right of freedom of speech here and crossed into slander. I’ll have my legal team look into this. In my humble opinion though, if they have the right to protest because they don’t like gay people and think they are the cause of everything wrong in the world, I have the right to protest how incredibly radical and nutty they are. Totally my opinion though, slander is serious business.

This makes me think of the recent uproar over the American’s burning the Koran. Our media downplays it as “oopsie, look what I did”, when if they had burned a stack of our bibles, we’d bomb the crap out of them. Why does one group of people have more right than another? Why can the Westboro Baptist Church have the right to insult people based on things they morally oppose, but I could hypothetically get in trouble for slander for pointing out that they are a little too radical to exist? In fact why do we pass off all Muslims as radicals, when right here in our own country, we have the Westboro Baptist Church? Are all Christians now radical terrorists? Again, just my humble opinion. This is all my opinion and nothing to do with any facts other than they did mention our hometown soldier as someone to protest.

I don’t have a problem if someone doesn’t agree with my point of view. If everyone agreed, the world would be a very boring place. I care that people frolic around with their ideals but no one else can argue with them. I don’t care that Rick Santorum doesn’t believe in birth control; I care that he thinks because he doesn’t, they shouldn’t exist. I lied; I do care that a religious person hates people based on sexual orientation, race or religion. I care because I remember my good ol’ days in Catechism classes and I remember they told me God didn’t make mistakes and he loved all his children, and these people must’ve skipped those years in their religious education. If there was a God out there, I’m pretty sure he’d care more that you were a good person than who you slept with at night.

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To Baby Reality Television

I admitted before, I watch some reality shows for the sole purpose of laughing about them. People can’t really be that crazy or dumb, right? That’s wishful thinking on my behalf I think, but it has its own entertainment factor. During boring hours of the early morning, I admit sometimes watching those baby birthing reality shows. With my recent condition, I now watch these with more scrutiny than I had previously. That is where we find ourselves today in my post.

In watching this, I realize that when I’m in the delivery room birthing this bloody child out of me, I don’t want a crowd of people in there watching blood and goo coming out of me. I don’t even want to watch it, and I don’t want to watch everyone else watching it. Maybe this makes me sound cold-hearted about the “miracle of birth”; I’m not cold about it at all. I just don’t understand why everyone and their everyone would want to watch something as grotesque as the laboring process. I also definitely do not want any bloody “crotch shots”. No one, and I really mean no one, ever wants to see these and I would rather not have my vagina immortalized on film. What if my child got hold of those photos? That’s scarring for the both of us. Then there’s the degrading factor of it all; the birthing process is degrading enough for a woman with 20 different people sticking their fingers up you and staring at things you’d rather them not be staring at. Yep, for all you expectant mothers out there, I have warned you of what you’re about to face. I’ll keep it mostly clean though, and tell you that your first push is never the baby. Don’t be embarrassed, now you expect it.

I noticed something that does make me cringe a little, and this might make me sound like a horrible person. (Because everything I just said didn’t already, right?) Why would you kiss a mucusy, bloody baby right in the globs of it, especially considering what came out before it did? I want to hold my baby when it comes out, I’ll hug its dirty little body. I think I’ll hold of the lip to skin contact until after its bath though, I’m not too much of a OCD germaphobe to say that out loud. Though with previous experience, I don’t think I have to worry since the hospital I’m going to apparently doesn’t believe in the person who spent hours birthing it should touch it first.

I think I’ve learned from these shows, that first I am an overly logical person that thinks before I feel. We are talking to the person who her husband said “if we get married, we’ll save money on health insurance” to convince me to finally take the step of marriage because I didn’t see a logical reason to get married. I think of the logistics of birth: the work, the blood, the gore. Much like everything else in life, it’s more rewarding when you work for it. After hours of painful non-epidural labor, you meet this thing that’s been growing in you for what seems like forever. That’s the biggest reward of all, when you hear the first screams and finally meet it.

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Things I Learned at the OB/GYN

Yes, another installment of my “Things I learned”. I know, you’re excited to see what happened.

The first thing I learned at the OB/GYN is that apparently I have to wait because someone decides that they should get a test that’s been scheduled for a week done right before their appointment. I’m all for a little procrastination, but I’m not for making someone wait an hour for their appointment because I was too lazy to do something a week ago. Which makes no sense, because generally they schedule them after the appointment, so you could’ve just went there on your way out. My theory is they put the lab there for that single reason of “oh I should get this done before I go”. Don’t worry, I had my Droid crossword puzzles and idiots in the waiting room to inspire this post, so I forgive you.

The next thing I learned, I should mention that I learned from a nice and intelligent group of teenagers. One was pregnant, and she decided it’d be a fun field trip for her and her friends. I know when I think of a fun day out with my friends, it’s having everyone together with me, while I’m covered in nothing but sheets while my female parts are on display. Sadly that’s not the reason I mentioned it, and I’ll ask you to prepare a /facepalm. The pregnant one says “I wonder if I can get them to C-Section this thing out of me 3 months early. I mean, its brains fully developed so it should be fine.” Her friend responded, “I’m sure it’ll be OK, you should ask while we’re there.” If you’re going to talk in the waiting room, don’t speak loud enough the entire place hears you say something stupid. Secondly, maybe being pregnant you should probably learn something about fetal development. I actually wish I was her friend in that moment to see how the exam with the midwife or doctor went. Oh, I laughed imagining what the medical practitioner’s face would look like in that moment.

The last thing I learned is that mothers don’t always know best. While sitting outside, reading the information packet my midwife gave me, a woman is walking by with her male partner and an infant in her arms. While holding her child, she has a lit cigarette hanging out of her mouth, with ashes dropping on the child’s clothes. The infant coughs, and she said “I wonder why he isn’t breathing well?” She tosses the baby to her partner, and drops the lit cigarette to the ground and walks in while her partner says “that’s why we’re here. He’s not doing so well.” It’s always sad to see a sick baby, those poor helpless beings. I might not be an expert in the medical field, but something tells me that carrying a child while smoking in their face probably isn’t helping them breathe any better. I’d also gather that smoking in a child’s face during the cold and flu season isn’t the best thing to do either. In fact, I think I’d go out on a limb and say just maybe, this is a long shot though, that blowing smoke in a baby’s face is causing them not to breathe well. Just tossing some free and unlicensed medical advice there.

And with that, I conclude what I learned. I hope any of this information is useful to you.

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Parenting 101

There are probably thousands or millions of parenting books on the market, and they make money as flocks of people go to read them. Chapters upon chapters that share what it means to be a parent and what you can do to improve on that. I think they are a sham; parents don’t need a book to tell them how to be a parent. If you need a book, you have more problems than you think.

This isn’t a knock on people who feel a little self-help is in order; I’m all for people improving because no one is perfect. That’s not the point of what I’m trying to say, the point is that basically being a parent isn’t something you can read in a book. Kids aren’t looking for a perfect parent; they are looking for “a” parent.

Now this brings us a question: What is a parent? I can tell you that donating genetics to create a human life doesn’t make you a parent; it makes you a genetic donor. I can tell you that a parent shows up to baseball games or at least just shows up when they tell you they will. A parent cuddles you in blankets with waters when you’re sick, and brags about you to their friends. A parent is simply someone who is there and loves you, and your child isn’t left wondering if you care or even remember they exist. I just told you what a parent is in a paragraph. I told you that you didn’t need any overpriced books to learn how to be a parent. You just need to show that you care.

I don’t think that being a parent is a right that anyone can give you. If you don’t stand up and take any responsibility, I don’t think you have any right to your child or to call even claim them as your child. A child is a precious gift, not one that should be tossed aside until it’s convenient. You don’t need to have that child be genetically yours, as long as you love it like it is. If you can’t appreciate your child, I don’t even know where to begin how incredibly awful people should think of you. With the thousands of people who struggle with infertility, you deserve the looks of shame you get from people who are dying for the chance to have a child to love. It saddens me to see parents take it for granted, sickens me almost, that a parent wouldn’t want to be involved. But since I hate ending posts on a sad note, I’d also love to take this moment to applaud adoptive and step-parents for loving and raising these children as their own. It takes special people to step up like that.

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My New Nemesis

At a point in a parent’s life, you come across a decision that makes you question your life as a person responsible for another life. They tell you to learn to pick your battles wisely. How do you know if the battles you let slide should be the ones you fight? It all starts with one decision that leads your child down a slippery path or a path of triumph. It is with my hands in my hair, that this time has come for me. I wonder if I should’ve fought a little harder to avoid it, but here I am today.

The nemesis: Skinny jeans. I cringe every time I’m at the store with him, and that’s what he likes. I want to tell him “no way in hell”, but I nod faking any excitement he sees. The most important thing to me is allow freedom to make decisions like wardrobe, and every trip to the store I wonder if I should fight him on the point. I suppose the problem could be a lot worse, he could prefer to only wear the same pair of black jeans every day with a dirty shirt. I should consider myself lucky that he prefers to be a fashion plate to being a “dirty looking scrubby boy”. Skinny jeans should be reserved for hipsters or girls, not for my little angel. No, this is what I face.

That was a battle I chose to back off from, there are things in his future I’m sure I’d rather waste my breath on than whether or not boys should wear skinny jeans. This doesn’t make me feel any less dirty buying them for him. I should start a group for “Say No to Skinny Jeans”, change the world one pair of pants at a time.