Oh, Rock River.

This is our new town:


It's such a small town I've never bothered to look up a map of it, thinking that just driving around it once we moved in would do the job. Hahahah! I paid for that mistake.

The yellow is a major thoroughfare for the area: small town, really important highway.

The orange is construction, also on a major thoroughfare.

I have an awesome idea: let's plug up both ends of this tiny little town at the same exact time. Maybe we should also close off highway 26. Oh wait, an act of God did that for us!

The green is where it's flooded (there's a lot more flooding than that, but it's more in people's yards and in soccer fields than it is on streets). Normally that little bit of green on the end of the west-side construction is my way to sneak around and get to our house fast. Not anymore.

Now I get to go the purple route, which take me along the new detour for the 8,300,745 people trying to go north on highway 26 through my town. I bypass the shorter route, J, because it would require me to turn left into bumper-to-bumper traffic. Whatever they say about New York drivers applies doubly to Wisconsin drivers. They're all either lunatics or inconsiderate; it's just that we're fewer in number, so the bad drivingness isn't as apparent.

Yesterday, what should have been a 45-minute trip would have taken me several hours. I finally did some semi-illegal maneuvering (Hi, County Sheriff in the parking lot!) and got myself into the parking lot of a restaurant where I could EAT! and PEE! Not in the parking lot. In the restaurant.

After I was done eating (I met some friends there; they were going to come by and see the new house, but that didn't happen), I hopped into the (now shorter) line onto Plymouth Street and made it to the house in about twenty minutes.

I was flipping out because our basement has been leaking like crazy with all this rain. The foundation is fine; the ground is just so saturated that water seeps right through the concrete. I fully expected to drive up and find the house collapsed in upon itself. Yes, I'm a drama queen. Yes, the house was fine.

Then I taped off (Despite my back protesting all the bending over, I really, really enjoy taping. I know. This is weird.) and painted some trim. Then tornadoes were coming, so James and I hightailed it out of there to come back to Madison and do some grocery shopping. I made garlic bread and ate four plums. I still have paint on my left arm. We lead such an exciting life.

Ho Despot!

Still alive.

But if you haven't heard from me again in, say, a month, someone come look for me in the Delafield paint aisle of Home Depot. I may be hard to find if I'm huddled under the Glidden paint display, chewing on bits of hair and paint cards and drooling all over my tightly-clutched knees.

My problem? I love colors. Deep, rich colors. The kinds of colors that will be scary and heavy in all of our somewhat small rooms. I don't mind lighter colors, but it's so hard to estimate what a lighter color will look like covering an entire wall or room. And what on earth goes with the brownish blue-green floor in our bathroom? It's not really a bad color, but I'm completely at a loss. Right now the walls in there are LEMON BUTTER YELLOW! YOU SHOULD TRY IT WITH YOUR STEAK!

I'm beginning to wish we lived in the street. I could give birth in a nice, countryside ditch, and my baby and I could forage for hay and clover while James earns the big

You tramp!

Today was awesome. I woke up, got ready for work, ate a package of spinach (I love me some spinach, especially with tons of white vinegar, and yes this is important), took my vitamins, caught the bus 45 minutes early (I like to get there early to put on makeup and get some food). Just as I saw the bus coming, I remembered that I had no socks to wear with my work shoes.

Oh well. I'll buy some on State Street. James is sick of me stealing his anyway.

I got on the bus, sat down, commenced with the Sudoku, and was promptly hit with a sudden compulsion to exit the bus. I opened a window and looked toward the front of the bus. This usually helps with any motion sickness. No, I could just feel the flush spreading across my face even faster. At the next stop, I scurried off and just made it to some bushes when blaaaaaaa! until no more spinach. Spinach with tons of white vinegar.

Dear vitamins: thank you.

In truth, I probably would have been fine if I hadn't gotten on the bus; the motion and the slight stuffiness just triggered what the vitamins had already set up to go off.

Oh well. I'll just wait for the next bus. I'm only 30 minutes ahead of schedule, but this just means no makeup.

I got on the next bus, grabbed a schedule, and discovered that not only would I miss the early number 6 I'd been going for, but I'd also just miss the one after that. The one after that would get me to work 5 minutes late. Wonderful. So I stopped at my Mediterranean Cafe and gorged myself on hummus and pita and Greek salad. It was amazing--almost worth throwing up spinach in the bushes. And then I bought some socks.

The first person to sit next to me on the bus was a very smelly old lady. There are two old lady smells that I've come across. One I call Ponds Face Cream and Baby Powder with Fifty-Year-Old Clothing. It's peculiar, but not offensive. The other I call 32 Canker-Ridden Cats in a Latrine. She was, unfortunately, the latter.

I tried to cultivate a more charitable attitude by thinking of her when she must have been young and very pretty, but that just made me feel sad and urpy, not just urpy.

She eventually moved to a more open seat, but the girl who replaced her smelled so strongly of pot, I nearly gagged from that. It's not normally an offensive smell. But it's kind of a sickly-sweet, and in huge quantities, it is offensive. She smelled like she'd not only smoked a joint before getting on the bus, but she'd also taken whatever remained of her supply, made shampoo, conditioner, lotion, and body spray out of it. And used it. A lot of it. I'd rather have 32 Canker-Ridden Cats in a Latrine.

Then I got to work and found out that I'd brought the two size small shirts that Renee wanted and forgotten to bring a medium for myself. So I walked around all night in a small shirt. It was like Hooters, except with a big belly-button dimple instead of, well, let's just say it was like a cyclops Hooters.

And finally. My last story of the evening, which just about killed me it was so rude and funny. (Runny? Food?)

I was filling up the sugar at a booth when I noticed the little girl next to me kind of eyeing me up. She was eleven or twelve.

I moved on to the next table and saw her whispering back and forth with her mom across the table. They were clearly discussing something that involved me. Then she approached and said, "Excuse me." I asked if there was anything I could help her with. She said, "Are you gonna have a baby?" I said yes and told her I was due in October. She skipped off and called out a congratulations.

A little weird, yes. I'm pretty sure that's what she and her mother were talking about before she came over, and I'm wondering why her mother didn't tell her that is something you never, ever ask a stranger. Even if you ask someone you know, you had better be dang sure that is baby weight she's carrying out front. Obviously, it didn't bother me, since I am pregnant and not just gaining weight, but wow. Just wow.

About five minutes later I was back in the bus station. It's hard for me to convey tone of voice her, so you'll just have to take my word for how I describe this:

Girl: My aunt's gonna have a baby in June.
Me: Oh, really? She's pretty far along then.
Girl: Yeah, but she's been married five years.

[implied: and you're not married. Whore.]

Me: Huh! So have I.
Girl: [said with some incredulity] Oh? Where's your ring, then?
Me: [holding up left hand with quarter-inch-wide bright gold wedding band] Uh... right here.
Girl: [with definite note of disappointment in her voice] Oh.

I smiled and walked away. It was so bizarre I couldn't even be offended, really. Here are the assumptions:

1) I'm a waitress, so I must be unmarried (and probably uneducated; this not implied here, but many other people assume this).
2) I'm pregnant, and since I must be unmarried, I must be some kind trollop.

The girl, only eleven or twelve, mind you, was disappointed that she couldn't lord her moral superiority over me. I know it might seem as if I'm reading too much into this, but please trust me. I've had this job a long time, and one thing I've learned how to do really well is figure people out based on tone of voice and body language. The thing that gets me the most is that before and between these two conversations, she'd been conferring with her mother (her mom was out of earshot and couldn't have heard anything the girl actually said to me). I'd give a million dollars to find out what they'd been talking about.

So weird.

(EvilNaomi wanted desperately to say something like, "Oh, my momma wants me to get married, but I can't even drive yet, and it really doesn't matter since I'm not sure which daddy to marry.")

TOO MANY INTARWEBZ

I'm operating on the assumption that most of my readers are women. If you are not, keep prudish and/or piggish comments to yourself. *KTHXBAI.

One of my friends sent me a message via facebook the other day, asking me how the whole pregnancy thing was going. I made the mistake of writing back after a night at work. I spent my entire shift starving and crazy, and all I could manage was a chicken tender, half a baked potato, and a bowl of grape tomatoes (that's my latest thing--I eat tons of the things--, and oh HAI THAR MOUTH SOREZ! I'M IN UR MOUTHZ WIT LOTZ OF ACIDZ!). So, I was a little frustrated when I replied thusly:
------
Oh, freaking AWESOME. Here's how it goes:

My Stomach: I'm starving. Feed me or I will make you crazy.
Me: How about [insert, delicious, healthy food that I have loved all my life]
My Stomach: Ew.
Me: Not even ranch dressing?
My Stomach: Ew.
Me: Cheese? Cheese is an essential food group all its own.
My Stomach: Ew. Idiot. I'm just going to starve. And make you miserable. How about half a jar of pickles, though? That sounds okay.

Probably way more info than you wanted/needed/was asking for, but I'm in a particularly bitter mood at the moment.

Last I checked, though, the baby is fine. So it's all worth it.
-------
It was meant to be funny, but now it just seems whiny. But still. So very true. I just keep reminding myself of what we'll get out of it in the end.

---

Also. Do not ever eat six fruit roll-ups in one sitting. Even if it seems like a really awesome idea at the time. It's not an awesome idea ever. It's a very bad idea.

---

On the upside of pregnancy, we have this: I have gone from a 34B to a 34E in just two short years. About 70% of that growth has happened in the last three months. James can barely believe his good fortune. I keep forgetting that they're, you know, there, and hitting them on things. Like my arms or when I try to squeeze sideways through a doorway that has a person in it already:

"Ow!"
"What's wrong?"
"My breasts are OUT OF CONTROL."
"Oh... Thanks... for that. Hope you feel better."

I mean, imagine if you feet suddenly grew an inch. It's kind of the same thing. Especially for someone like me who could never get a date with **Archibald Widdershins because I had no boobs. Also because I was a huge dork, but I like to think it had nothing to do with me or my personality.

---

*I can't help doing this LOLCATSspeak since I saw this, which is awesomely hilarious. While I've always found it hilarious, this latest batch of funniness is too much for me to resist the fad any longer.

**You know, I bet someday he or one of his friends somehow stumbles across this. I don't know how. It's not like the guys I went to high school with browse Blogger looking for touching stories and wild hilarity. But I bet they do find it and tell him. And if they do, I never want to know about it. Because I will die. Also, Archibald Widdershins is not his real name, but I'm pretty sure everyone who knew me in high school could figure it out.

Ew.

Dear Members of the General Public:

One

If you are crammed in next to someone in a double seat, and another double seat empties out just a small distance away from you, move to that seat. (I got stuck on a nearly empty bus squished against the wall by a somewhat portly 40-something lady for about half an hour the other day. I chalk my rage up to hormones, but it would have irked me anyway. I nearly punched her.)

Two

Four in the afternoon is a totally inappropriate time to save a seat for someone who isn't even on the bus yet:

Middle Aged Lady: Is anyone sitting here? [indicating a double seat with a bag on it, and a third seat next to the girl who is guarding the bag. She has her feet on the seat. They are wet and sandy.]
Hoodlum Child: My sister's sitting there. She's standing up there by the bus driver.
MAL: Two people to four seats?
HC: Our friends are getting on soon. [Meanwhile, 85 people who are already on the bus have nowhere to sit]

(Later, HC's sister finally came to sit down (the friends never arrived). She was going to sit down but saw that HC had made the seat all gross with her dirty feet. So she sat in the next seat up. HC put her feet right back on the seat. This bothered me way more than it should have.)

Three

Please do not foray into the street and onto the bus if you *smell strongly of cats. It's nasty to the average person. But pregnant women already struggling with motion sickness will barf on you.

Four

Please do not frequent a restaurant if you smell strongly of musty attic and marijuana and dirty socks and some other undefinable vileness. Same reason. Only this time change "women" to "waitresses".

You people were wondering why I hardly ever went to your table. Why you had stacks of dishes everywhere. Well, first, it's because you piled your plates with more food than your average half-ton man could eat and then only ate two bites. And then went back for six more similar plates. And there were ten of you. It's hard to keep up with that. Also, I like to make you look at what you're wasting for a good long time (like rubbing a dog's snout in Bad Things He's Done, not that you're animals; you're people, so please act like people).

But mostly it was because every trip to your table was an unpleasant reminder of what I ate for lunch. And you don't want **recycled hummus plate down your neck, no matter how good it was the first time around

---

*Oh please. You can own lots of cats and not smell like them. I know a family that owns an illegal number of cats, and somehow they still manage to smell like roses (the people, not the cats, though the cats don't smell bad).

**If you live in Madison, you must visit oh crap. I cannot remember the name of this place. But it's got a green overhang with white letters, it's on the south side of State Street near the west end, somewhere between Frances and Lake Street Mediterranean Cafe. I finally remembered! Actually, no; I went there again and made sure to take a good long look at the sign. Delicious. I have the hummus plate with chicken and extra sauce (I like to mix it with the hummus, which is a little too sharp sometimes). Oh, but it's tiny and always busy. So make sure you have time.

People

People
James: Husband. Sometimes I call him by his real name. Don't think that I have two husbands.

Study Buddy: From my days in engineering. She, James and I were lab partners once (well, James did most of the work; she did some; I sat in the computer lab feeling my soul slowly die at the awful prospect of devoting my life to engineering). Now we study together.

Awesome Friend: Name is pretty descriptive. But there's more about her here.

Church Friend: Um, friend from church (dur). I've known her (off and on) since we were little. Now she goes to my school. And she makes wicked good coffee.

CFF or Church Friend's Friend or BlueDelirium: Friend I met through Church Friend. Obviously.

Hebrew Friend 2.0: New Hebrew Friend. She didn't join our class until partway through second year Hebrew, and now we're both in the same two soul-sucking courses. I guess misery really does love company.

Dr. Evil: My Syriac and Hebrew professor. He's not really evil. in fact, in his own way, he's really wonderful. But he's demanding and terrifying and has no concept of how much he scares the crap out of his students. Or maybe he does. I don't know. Anyway, despite all that, he's one of the best teachers I've ever had. I call him Dr. Evil because, if I didn't know better, I'd think he was a psychotic sadist.

M: Dr. M. Another professor in the Hebrew department. She is tough, and her class makes my brain squeak in pain, but I heart her.

Crazy People!

My keyboard seems to have unstuck itself most of the way. Except the space bar. It still doesn't want to budge, but when it does, it's very enthusiastic about it. <---see (ok, this is weird. only two spaces show up, although what I've typed has like a hundred spaces)? So, I'm writing an entry.

I sat next to a nice crazy man on the bus today. Because he was nice, I felt really bad for wanting to bludgeon him with my mp3 player. I was sitting on the window seat, and Crazy Man plopped down right next to me. He was about two and a half times my width. I mean, I tried to be understanding, but you can only get so cozy with a stranger on the bus before the discomfort starts.

So, at first it was okay. I'm smooshed, yeah, but there's really nowhere else for him to sit. But then he started talking to me. And this is where iPod Action Plan comes into play. Crazy Man strikes up conversation with his two friends--me and the invisible man who is apparently sitting on my lap--, and I can pretend that I don't know he's speaking to me. Thus, no hurt feelings on his part, and no uncontrollable urges to throw myself out the emergency exit on my part.

After Crazy Man realized I couldn't hear him, he continued talking to someone--I don't know who, may as well have been his pet gourd Fred because there was really no one else within conversational distance. He caught my eye a couple times and smiled, and I smiled back, and I thought, Ok, it's going to be all right. No awkward conversations here. We just smile at each other. Good times.

Then he started digging in his pocket for something, I don't know what. He (and, the first time I typed this, I wrote "I" instead of "He", which is really funny to me) removed all 762 objects from his pants pocket one by one, elbowing me viciously in the arm every single time he went for anothing dig. That's when the bludgeoning fantasies began. But then he'd smile at me periodically, and it was such a sweet smile that I couldn't hold onto the bad angry feelings.

Apparently, what he wanted was not in his pocket (of course not!). Back went all 762 objects into his pocket, one by one--dig, dig, dig, flash an appeasing grin at me, dig, dig, dig, break my rib, etc.

Finally everything was back in his pocket. I heaved a sigh of relief.

Now, the digging in the pocketsessss had been bearable because I knew there was a finite number of things to dig for and to put back. I knew it would end sometime. But then he started played with his knit cap. He'd fold it, unfold it, toss it in the air, catch it (which, ouch in my arm), put it on his head. I was rather surprised that he didn't start petting it or offer it to me as a tasty snack. Knowing this could go on indefinitely, I despaired. I still had 20 minutes left on my bus ride, meanwhile my right arm is slowly turning to pureed meat.

But he was such a happy man! I couldn't be angry! But I wanted to be! Which made me even angrier!

Just when I thought I couldn't take it anymore, Crazy Man got off the bus, still not successful in his treasure-digging.

I looked at the seat next to me after he'd gotten up, and there it was. His pen! He'd wanted his pen all along, and it had been under him. I swear to you that, if I had known that's where the pen was, I would have reached my hand under his rear and retrieved it myself. That's how desperate I was.

---

I struck up a conversation with a bus driver today who came to eat at my restaurant. Boy did he have a good one. There's a man who comes on his morning bus every day. This man rides by himself, but he always pays two fares. The empty seat next to him contains one imaginary friend. To get around this and save the man some money, the bus driver has told him multiple times, "Oh, don't worry about your friend. He can ride for free." The man's response: "He'd better pay. He's an effing a-hole, and he deserves to pay. If he ever doesn't, just let me know, and I'll kick his effin'a**."

If anyone sits in the imaginary friend's lap by accident, the guy freaks out. He yells, he screams, he swears. And, here's the best part: just to settle everyone down, the bus driver comes over and says, "You can't sit there because you're on his friend's lap." It takes a real man to say that with a straight face every single morning and not go off the deep end.

I'm so glad I don't drive a bus. I would cry at least once an hour. Or I would just snap one day and have my imaginary henchman shoot everyone. I don't know which.

I'm going to bed. I can't handle this space bar anymore. It's making me twitchy.